


Queen Of Swords

by ouiser_boudreaux



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Human Disaster Julian Devorak, Human disaster apprentice, Julian Devorak Route - Upright Ending, Multi, No one here is making good choices tbh, Pirates, Recovered Memories, Swords & Sorcery, i think i will cause problems on purpose, rated s for shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:02:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27407014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ouiser_boudreaux/pseuds/ouiser_boudreaux
Summary: With the Devil defeated and Julian by her side, Vissenta's feels as though she's earned her happily ever after. But her headaches haven't gone away, her dreams have gotten stranger, and she can't shake the sense that there's still something missing.Plus, Julian STILL hasn't moved in. Or told her he loves her since that one time in the Devil's chains. You know, all the usual things that happen when the honeymoon phase is over.When Julian, Portia, and Mazelinka plan a voyage to Nevivon, Vissenta plans to answer some questions of her own along the way. Unfortunately, when Asra gives her a curiously etched pendant and a heated kiss at the docks before she leaves, she just finds more questions popping up every day.Vissenta wanted a life of adventure, but she never could have bargained for what's in store.
Relationships: Apprentice & Portia Devorak, Apprentice/Asra (Past Relationship), Apprentice/Julian Devorak, Julian Devorak/Original Female Character(s), Portia Devorak/Nadia
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	1. On The Boundary

This dream always started out the same. She was lying on her back in a cavern. There was the steady drip of water into a deep pool beside her, and the barest circle of night sky limned by moonlight directly above her. The cavern was deep, so deep, and most of the time in these dreams she couldn’t move her limbs and her panicked breaths became so rapid that she woke up in a cold sweat. She could feel the sweat prickling at the back of her neck now, anxiety threatening to rise.

 _Try deep breathing,_ Asra told her once. _You’re a magician; you can take control of your dreams._

Easy for him to say.

She tried it now, but she knew how it would end: she’d inevitably try moving her head up and would be frozen in place and the panic would subsume her into wakefulness. Still, in spite of herself, she twitched a finger.

Wait.

She did it again, this time with her whole hand. It moved, her hand moved, and she could push herself up, she could sit up, she could move, she could _move…_

Now that she was sitting upright, she could see that the cavern wasn’t nearly as fathomless as she’d first thought. It was enormous, yes, but it still contained measurable boundaries when she was able to swivel her head, twist her spine, push upward onto her feet. Maybe she had taken control of her dream after all.

Blinking, she turned around in a slow circle to take in the surroundings of the cavern. Was this her gate? _It can’t be my gate. I have to make my gate. Gates don’t come from thin air._ Still, it felt like someplace important, someplace vital to her being, but as far as she could remember, she’d never seen a cavern like this before.

A chill wind brushed past her. She shivered and rubbed at her bare arms - she was only wearing a white linen shift, unlike anything she’d worn before, but it felt so familiar all the same - and turned with the wind to see the first of a winding set of stone stairs that were laid into the sloping wall of the cave.

Her eyes followed the stairs. They took a gentle, curving track upward, ending at the lip of the moonlit circular opening that had taunted her for months now. Her feet moved of their own accord, and she noticed with almost calm detachment that she was barefoot. The stone beneath her was cool and smooth, as if this were a track walked countless times by countless barefoot young women, and she was simply the next.

She knew this was still a dream because for all the stairs she climbed, her legs never grew tired, her breath never felt labored, and her balance stayed true in spite of the slick stone. She was simply climbing, climbing upward, climbing toward something that felt so _important…_

The cavern opened up to wide sky and more stone and more stairs, and on either side of her she could see brittle, windswept grass on a steeply sloping hillside. Hill might have been the wrong word; she felt as if she were on a mountain, the air thin and piercing and _cold_ , so much colder than any of the air in Vesuvia, and she wondered where she was, but there was only one way to go. One way to find out.

The only way was up.

She climbed the hillside - mountainside - and there, in sharp relief against the bright full moon, was a carved archway that led to a ring of elegant, slender standing stones. They glowed silvery-blue in the moonlight, and inside the ring of stones, cast in shadow, stood three women.

They were all dressed like her, all barefoot, all in white shifts, but unlike her they all held something. One had a bowl that must have been full of water, if the shimmering waves of light reflected on her face were any indication. Another held a torch, with a flame that burned curiously blue. The third held a disk of stone, the same stone that surrounded them, but carved into a perfect circle. As she came closer she could see that it was intricately carved, as was the handle of the torch and the rim of the bowl. She drew to a stop, mouth agape, wondering if she ought to turn back around, when the woman holding the torch turned to look directly at her.

“Ah, little sister,” said the woman. “I see you’ve finally come to join us.”

With a start, Vissenta woke up.

* * *

Vissenta sat up, gasping. It was still dark outside. Instinctively she reached beside her, reached for the warmth of Julian, but he was gone. Her heart sank, just a little bit broken, even though she knew that he never stayed anyway. The rumpled bedsheets were always all that greeted her in the mornings. Shivering, she lay back down and reached out to clutch his pillow instead. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, taking in the lingering scent of him, and felt her heartbeat gently slow back down, and for another fitful hour, she drifted in and out.

When sunlight filtered in through the curtains and met her closed eyes, she sighed. Sitting up, she rubbed at her temples. This dream had been different, she knew it was, but whenever she tried to remember _how,_ all she could see was blinding white behind her eyelids. The pain came soon after, and she flopped back down with a groan. “Breathe, Vis,” she grumbled to herself, and focused on counting as the pain flared and died. By the time it finally dissipated, she was in danger of falling asleep once more, until a much more urgent memory made her eyes snap back open. “Today’s the day!”

Headache all but gone, Vissenta bolted out of bed and started snatching up clothes from the pile of clean laundry left abandoned on a chair. She yanked a wrinkled mauve blouse over her head, swearing all the while, and cast a look at her barely-packed bags. Today was the day, and she’d done absolutely nothing in the way of actually packing.

She wrinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out at her scattered things while she absentmindedly plaited her long deep brown hair, rolled up the cuffs on a pair of pants she’d yet to hem to fit her short frame, and shoved her feet into a well-worn pair of slouched boots. Packing, she decided, could wait until she’d had a cup of something hot to drink and a slice of pumpkin bread. She buckled on her ever-present waist pack, shaking it to make sure there was sufficient coin, and bounded down the stairs.

The day bode well for a voyage: the sky was brilliant blue, without a cloud in sight, and even with the bright Vesuvian sun shining down there was a constant breeze wafting in from the docks to keep the heat at bay. Vissenta locked the shop door behind her and took a moment to simply stand and look at the street in front of her, listen to the sounds of the market nearby, smell the mingling of spices and salt air and incense that made up the city center. As far as she could tell, Vesuvia was all she’d ever known. She wanted to drink it in and savor it, even with the nagging itch at the back of her mind that told her that maybe this wasn’t her entire truth.

She shook her head and began her walk. First things first, to market.

Selasi must have spotted her before she could even see the bakery in the morning throng. “Vissenta!” He bellowed at her cheerily, and the crowd parted just a bit for her to make her way to his shopfront.

Vissenta flashed the baker a grin. “Don’t tell Julian, but you’re my favorite person to see in the mornings.”

“Ha!” Selasi had already set a table for her in his newly-built outside dining space, complete with a steaming pot of coffee, a cup already poured, and a loaf of pumpkin bread, a thick slab of it cut and spread with sweet honey cinnamon butter. “Your secret is safe with me.”

Vissenta collapsed into the chair and fell to the buttered bread with indecorous enthusiasm. She sighed happily, or as much as her full mouth would allow. When she’d finally washed the mouthful down with a scalding sip of coffee, she waved Selasi over. “How well do you think this bread will travel to Nevivon?”

The baker gave her plate a pointed look. “Will it last as far as Nevivon?”

“If Vissenta has it, it won’t last more than five minutes out of Vesuvia’s port.” Asra’s melodious voice came from just beyond Vissenta’s shoulder, and he dropped into view to take the seat across from hers at the table. “Fancy seeing you here, Vis.”

“Fancy me? Fancy you.” Vissenta didn’t even wait for Asra to ask before she sliced into the warm loaf and handed the bread over. A pair of scarlet eyes peeped out from underneath Asra’s shirt and emerged in full lavender-hued serpentine glory soon after. Asra absentmindedly broke off a nibble of bread and handed it to Faust. Vissenta smiled at the faint sound of _yum_ that echoed through her mind in that peculiar, sibilant Faust voice. “Coffee?”

Asra pulled a face. “No thank you.” As if on cue, Selasi sat a pot of smoky lapsang souchong and an empty cup down on the table. “Ah, perfect.” He flashed a dimpled grin at Selasi. “Such service.”

“For my best customers? Absolutely.” Selasi wiped his hands on his apron. “Though, if you’ve got anymore of that joint tonic on hand…”

Asra reached into his vest and produced a small stoppered vial and slipped it into Selasi’s hand. “This one is more concentrated, so once a week should do,” he said with a smile. He turned back to Vissenta as Selasi turned to clear another table of licked-clean plates and cups. “When did you stop drinking tea?”

“I haven’t stopped,” she replied archly, taking another sip of her coffee. “Coffee just pairs so well with the bread.”

Asra leveled his gaze. “Ilya doesn’t know how to make tea?”

Vissenta relented. “Ilya is hopeless at making tea.”

They both laughed, and with a pang Vissenta realized that she would miss Asra while she was gone. She leaned back in her chair and topped off her cup and rolled her shoulders and neck, lapsing into comfortable silence while she tried to work out the stiffness in her muscles. There was no fooling Asra, though. His gaze was steady and patient, the look of someone who had all the time in the world to wait. Vissenta had watched merchants and thieves alike (and who was to say they weren’t one and the same, sometimes?) crumple beneath that stare, folding like a house of cards, baring their souls and secrets in the face of Asra and his arcana. “It also helps with the headaches,” she said, finally.

Asra’s violet eyes sharpened ever so slightly. “The headaches are back?”

With one hand at her temples, Vissenta furrowed her brow and stared into her coffee cup. “The headaches never left.” She could feel one coming on now, even just talking about it, and she gulped down more of the brew to chase it away. “They aren’t as frequent, but they’re more painful than before.”

“Ilya must be a terrible doctor,” Asra said in a tone that was carefully light, calculated in its jest, and his eyes crinkled in a fairly convincing portrait of mirth. “I’m sure he could—“

“They’re not the normal kinds of headaches,” Vissenta snapped, more forcefully than she intended. She closed her eyes and sighed. “Sorry. It’s just… it’s when I wake up. I know I’m having dreams, but I can’t remember them when I wake up. It's nothing but pain.”

A shadow passed over Asra’s eyes, one that anyone else might think was a trick of the light, but Vissenta knew better. Most of her memories of the time before the plague had come back, including the near-decade she’d known Asra, and she found herself more attuned to his moods and expressions than ever these days. Still, irritatingly, her very first memories were still of Asra’s face, even when she reached back as far as she could without inducing another headache.

_“I come from somewhere,” she’d told him not two weeks ago, over their weekly breakfast of bread and tea and coffee, because some things never change between old friends, some rituals are always sacred. “I have to come from somewhere.”_

_Asra shrugged. “Everyone comes from somewhere,” he said simply. “And now you’re here.” He wouldn’t let her press the subject and instead insisted on ordering more pastries until they both had mouths too full to talk._

Vissenta leaned forward and propped her elbows on the table and pressed the heels of her hands into her closed eyes. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but…”

Asra let her trail off and cut another slice of pumpkin bread, pushing it across the table while waving his other hand over it to coax a little more warmth from it. “It can’t sound as ridiculous as—“

“Don’t.” Vissenta glowered up at Asra. “I know Ilya likes being slapped around a little but that doesn’t mean he gets to be your punching bag.” She couldn’t help her small smile at that. “Don’t tell him I said that.”

“Me?” Asra’s eyes widened to a comical diameter. “I would never.”

Vissenta pursed her lips and huffed, hard enough to blow her messy bangs from her eyes, and picked up the magically-warmed slice of bread. She took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. “Anyway,” she continued after another sip of coffee. “Like I was saying. I feel like this trip…” She trailed off for a moment, sighed, and shrugged. “I feel like we’re doing more than seeing Ilya’s home. I feel like I might find my home along the way.”

“Well, won't Ilya’s home become your—“

Vissenta waved her free hand. “No. You know what I mean.” She poured the last of the coffee from the pot and dunked the heel of the loaf. “There’s still so many pieces missing, but I feel like I could just reach out and take them if I knew how to start. And something about leaving Vesuvia just… feels like the start. Feels like how I finally find my answers.” She leaned over to offer Faust a nibble of the last few coffee-soaked crumbs. “I mean, for starters, what kind of magician doesn’t have a familiar?”

Before Asra could answer, Selasi swept by in a flurry of flour and spices, bearing a linen-wrapped package which he proffered to Vissenta. “For the doctor. I told him I would try to make some of that black bread he’s always going on about and I think I’ve gotten the recipe right this time.”

“Oh!” Vissenta’s face broke into a wide, delighted grin. “Selasi! I don’t even know what to say!”

The baker waved his hands and shook his head, chuckling. “No need to say anything.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “Actually, doctor Devorak was here this morning before the sun had even come up. Mentioned that you’re stopping in Parletris on your way to Nevivon.”

Asra flinched back as if he’d been slapped. Selasi didn’t notice, subtle as the magician’s movements were, but Vissena saw it plain as day. She arched an eyebrow at him as she answered Selasi. “Oh, yes. I’ve been assured it’s the original city of sin.”

“Oh, nothing as bad as that,” Selasi replied. “Too many tourists now. It’s a city that plays pretend.” He gave Vissenta a wink. “But the food is as sinful as ever from what I hear.”

Asra still looked stricken, but when Vissenta peered closer at him, he shook his head and waved his hands dismissively. The only indication that something was amiss was Faust coiling and uncoiling around his arm, her head dipping into his vest and back out. “Selasi’s right. Excellent food, but a letdown if you’re looking for real debauchery.”

Vissenta peered up at the angle of the sunlight filtering through the slats in the awning and drained her coffee. “I’ll be sure to report back thoroughly. That is, if I can finish packing.” She fished some coins from her waist pack, waving away Selasi’s protests. “You can’t make me take these back. I’m leaving them right here on the table.” She stood and turned on her heel, giving Asra a wave over her shoulder. “See you at the docks!”

A few seconds after Vissenta disappeared into the market crowd, Selasi leaned over and propped his hands on the table to bring his eyes level with Asra’s. “You know, you can’t keep pining after her forever.”

Asra picked up his teacup. “No idea what you’re talking about,” he said airily. He took an obnoxiously slurping sip from the dregs of the cup for emphasis.

Selasi harrumphed and moved to clear Vissenta’s dishes. “I’ve known both of you for nine years now, and you for even longer. I’m not as simple as I look, you know.”

Faust poked her head back out from behind Asra’s neck and flicked her tongue at Selasi playfully. Asra tapped her snoot. “Shush, you. You aren’t supposed to agree with him.” He peered into his empty cup and turned it about, humming thoughtfully.

“Reading tea leaves now?” Selasi finished stacking the empty dishes and wove his way back inside without waiting for an answer.

Gracefully, Asra stood. He readjusted his scarf absentmindedly and gave Faust a scritch on the chin. When he peered down at the dark leaves plastered to the bottom of the creamy white teacup once more, he frowned. “But I don’t want to,” he murmured.

 _Help friend,_ Faust said.

Asra sighed. “When you’re right, you’re right,” he replied, and slipped away into the crowd.


	2. We Set To Sail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey begins, and more questions arise.

Vissenta breathlessly skidded to a halt before barreling into Julian at the docks. “How… did you run… with that trunk?” She dropped her pack and leaned over, hands on her knees, gasping for breath. “Where are you hiding your muscles?”

Julian sat his things down more carefully and wrapped his arms around Vissenta’s middle. “I’m not sure. Let’s find out together.” He lifted her up and she let out an almighty shriek. He spun around, and her shriek turned to a giggle, and they both nearly collapsed into giddy, dizzy laughter.

“Get a room, you two!” Portia’s wild mane of ginger curls popped up over the ship’s railing. She swung around to scramble down the gangplank, grinning all the while. When she reached Vissenta and Julian she swooped down to scoop up Vissenta’s pack beneath one arm and Julian’s trunk beneath the other. “Last one aboard is a rotten egg!”

Vissenta stared at Portia, and then back at Julian, and threw her hands up. “What’s in the water in Nevivon?”

“What isn’t in the water, more like,” grumbled Mazelinka from behind them. She poked Julian in the back with her spoon, which was curiously still part of her ensemble, in spite of her sweet grandmotherly shawl having disappeared entirely in favor of a businesslike bandana to hold her wiry gray hair out of her face. The rest of her cut a fierce picture as well, complete with a well-worn leather coat and a dangerous-looking saber strapped to her side. “You made her carry her pack all the way here? Tch. Lilinka raised you better than that!”

Julian looked sheepish. “We were… racing?”

“With your long legs against her little ones?” Mazelinka thwacked his arm with the spoon this time. “We might be pirates, Ilya, but we’re—“

“Men of honor,” Julian finished with a wince. He rubbed at the spot on his bicep where the spoon landed. “Her legs aren’t that short, you know.”

Vissenta gasped and crossed her arms. “I’ll have you know I am the picture of small and dainty,” she retorted. She sidled up beside Mazelinka and jerked her head toward Portia, who was skipping back down the gangplank without having even broken a sweat. “I bet Portia would’ve carried my pack and let me win.”

With a broad wink and an exaggerated tilt of her hips, Portia tossed her hair and gave Julian a playful punch on his other arm. “Some of us remembered Lilinka’s lessons on how to treat a lady, you know.” She quirked an eyebrow at Vissenta. “If it was me, I would’ve carried you to the ship myself, since you’re so dainty and all.”

Vissenta smirked as Julian began to blush furiously and fumble around for words. “Maybe I’ve shacked up with the wrong Devorak.”

“Oh, I should hope not.” Without preamble, Nadia stepped down onto the pier behind them. “I’m afraid I’ve never been the sharing type.”

Portia’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. She burned bright red, her mouth opening and closing like a fish on dry land, and finally managed to squeak out a response. “M-milady!”

Nadia raised her eyebrows. “Portia, darling, I don’t think we need to keep pretending.”

Portia was full-on scarlet now and studiously avoiding eye contact with Vissenta, Julian, or Mazelinka. “Of course, mi- Nadia.”

Julian placed his hands on Vissenta’s shoulders and bent down to stage-whisper in her ear. “What is going on?”

“Shush!” Vissenta clapped a hand over his mouth. She was grinning ear-to-ear, though, to see the normally unflappable Portia reduced to a blush and a stammer that might put the elder Devorak sibling to shame. “You know exactly what’s going on!”

Nadia swept down gracefully to plant a kiss on each of Portia’s cheeks. She straightened once more, eyes glittering and lips turned up in amusement, and cast her gaze over to the rest of the party. “Doctor. Vissenta. And Captain Mazelinka!” She nodded, her half-smile turned to a full one, and gestured out to the sea in a wide arc of her hand. “With you at the helm, I know my dear Portia will return to me safely.”

Mazelinka huffed. “With these two, I make no guarantees.” She jerked her thumb at Portia and her head at Julian. “I’m hoping Vissenta keeps ‘em in line, myself.”

“Are you so sure about that?” As if on cue, Asra strode along the pier to join the farewell party.

Vissenta rolled her eyes at him. “Come to get your last quips in, Alnazar?”

“You know it, Senadz.” Asra looped an arm around her shoulder, making like he was going to muss up her hair with his knuckles, which was returned by a good-natured stage punch on the jaw by VIssenta. As more general chatter erupted around them - Julian asking Portia about all this countess business, and Mazelinka giving him another sharp rap with the spoon for prying - he leaned in to murmur in Vissenta’s ear. “I have something for you, before you go.”

Her eyes widened up at him, but all he did was gently shake his head. _Not yet_.

Meanwhile, Nadia was fielding questions with her customary grace, and Portia’s complexion slowly returned to normal. Nadia’s hand rested at the small of Portia’s back, and the other woman kept flashing adoring looks up at her during lulls in the conversation. Vissenta’s heart lurched and she was suddenly, acutely aware of the fact that it was Asra, not Julian, with an arm around her. Her gaze drifted over to Julian, who had already shucked his jacket off and rolled his sleeves up to help load the rest of the cargo under Mazelinka’s watchful eye. She frowned. “So, what is it?”

Asra’s gaze flicked upward toward Julian, then back around the docks. “Over here.” He took Vissenta’s hand and pulled her behind a stack of crates. Once sequestered away, he reached into his vest and pulled something out, his fist still closed around it. “Hold out your hand.”

Vissenta furrowed her brow, but she did as he asked, and Asra opened his hand over hers to drop something small but solid and weighty in her palm. She brought it up to her face for closer inspection.

The something was a pendant, a purple jasper cabochon polished to a soft, smooth shine, its mottled shades distracting momentarily from the fact that there was something etched into the surface. Vissenta traced the tiny, delicate marks, shaped like a crown, with four swords piercing it. The stone was set in tarnished bronze, and when she turned it over to look at the back, there was another, cruder etching that caused her breath to catch in her throat.

_V.S._

Her fingers traced the letters and, for just a moment, they tingled, as if with some warm shock of power, like a casting performed in reverse. She looked up at Asra, her green eyes gone sharp and narrow. “What is this?”

Asra lifted one shoulder in an attempt at nonchalance. “Something to help with the headaches.”

Vissenta turned the pendant back over, letting her thumb travel over the etched stone surface. There was a flash of something again, a memory dancing at the edge of her mind, and she frowned. She didn’t want to chase it. Not here. Not yet.

She pocketed the pendant and looked back to Asra, who was gazing at her with such unreserved affection and sadness and - and _longing_ \- that she averted her eyes to a spot just above his head. “So,” she began, suddenly very interested in the grain of the wooden crate over Asra’s shoulder.

Asra stepped forward then, without warning or preamble, and took hold of her shoulders. He leaned down and brushed a kiss at the corner of her mouth that lingered just a second too long. “Good luck,” he said, his lips still resting next to hers. Then his mouth was fully on hers, and all she could do was hold on to the pendant as her mind raced in a hundred different directions.

_Asra is kissing me._

_Asra is kissing me like he’s done it a thousand times._

_Hasn’t he?_

_Have I always let him?_

_Why am I letting him now?_

_Why does it feel so good?_

Without warning, Asra stepped back, hands still resting on Vissenta’s shoulders, and looked into her eyes. “You know how to call me.” His fingers tightened. “You will, won’t you? If there’s any trouble. If you need any help.”

His eyes were mesmerizing. Hypnotic, even. Vissenta’s first memories were of looking into those eyes, wanting to get lost in them, and right now they wove the same spell as she stared. She fell into the memory as easy as falling into a well.

_“What’s your name?”_

_She swatted at the hand shaking her shoulder. “Doesn’t matter,” she croaked out, turning her face away from the blinding sliver of sunlight that hit her face when the stranger opened the canvas flap of the shelter she’d made for herself three nights ago. No, not a shelter. A place to rest. A place to… a place to die._

_“Muriel. Help me get her out of here.” The stranger’s voice was so soothing, so calm, and she rubbed at the salt and grime that stuck the corners of her eyelashes together so she could get a better look at this busybody who couldn’t just let her die here. The first thing she saw was a shock of fluffy, wavy white hair, even more starkly brilliant against a smooth, bronzed forehead. When she met his eyes, she was lost, so lost in that deep well of purple, and she realized she’d never seen anyone with purple eyes before._

_The stranger brushed the tangle of knotted hair from her forehead and flashed her a gentle smile. “It does matter.”_

_She blinked and scowled. “What matters?”_

_“Your name.” The stranger smiled, still so gentle, still so understanding, and he pressed one hand to his chest. “Mine is Asra.” He reached up to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear._

_The hot sting of tears in her eyes surprised her, partly because she didn’t think she had any left to weep, and partly because there was no way this kind stranger could know just how much her name mattered, just how much she wanted to escape it, just how much she wanted to escape everyone and everything. She licked her dry, chapped lips. “My name is Vi—“ She stumbled on the first syllable, not wanting him to know, and she cast her mind about for another name, something as far from the cold hills and cobbled streets of her home as she could manage. She remembered, then, a name she’d overheard on the passage over, when she’d stowed away in a merchant vessel bound for the other side of the sea. “Vissenta. I’m Vissenta.”_

“Hoi! All aboard!” Mazelinka’s voice cut through the haze.

Vissenta started and pulled back from Asra, uncomfortably aware of how she’d started to tilt her face up towards his as the memory played out in her mind. She backed away in a hurry, searching for the right words, when she bumped into someone standing just behind her. She yelped and spun around, cheeks blazing, to see Portia, arms crossed and jaw agape in wide-eyed consternation. “Portia!”

Portia’s mouth snapped shut. Vissenta could see the gears turning behind her eyes, but when she opened her mouth again, her reply was perfectly, placidly neutral. “Goodbye time is over. Let’s go before Mazelinka leaves us behind.”

Still red-faced and at a loss for words, Vissenta nodded and cast only the most cursory glance over her shoulder at Asra. “We’ll see you again soon,” she mumbled, and trailed after Portia up the gangplank.

* * *

After dinner - a relaxed abovedeck affair, casual and celebratory, with Julian passing around Selasi’s gift of black bread and the others in the crew sharing their own treats that were sure to spoil sooner rather than later - Vissenta and Julian made it their first order of business to pilfer a bottle of rum before it made it down to the galley. “Call it our personal ration,” Julian said, though he certainly didn’t need to persuade Vissenta further when it came to matters of alcohol and petty larceny. They felt like two misbehaving teenagers as they covertly passed the bottle back and forth on the trek to their shared cabin, bathed in the warm red-orange glow of the sunset.

Shared cabin. Vissenta still couldn’t really comprehend the idea, not when Julian had never once stayed in bed with her at the shop, or even given any indication that he wanted to. Even when they’d loaded in their belongings, he’d blushed and stumbled over his words and said something about the limited space on board and wouldn’t she rather bunk with Pasha?

This, of course, was quickly vetoed by Portia and Vissenta.

Vissenta lurched forward with the ship, stumbling into Julian and giggling madly. The sweet, spicy liquor was chasing away the searing memory of Asra’s kiss, and Portia’s scowl, and the way the latter had avoided her as soon as they’d boarded. It made Vissenta’s cheeks burn to think about Portia’s normally sweet smile turned into something darker, fiercer, every time she locked eyes with Vissenta over dinner. She wasn’t smiling so much as baring her teeth, promising unfinished business that would likely involve an earful of “how could you”s, and Vissenta still wasn’t ready to face it. To banish the thought, she took another swig of rum and grabbed Julian’s collar. “When do I get my sea legs?”

Julian, ecstatic as he was to be on a grand adventure, had missed Portia’s mood entirely. He grinned and twisted around suddenly, seizing the bottle and making Vissenta lose her grip on him, and he began to nimbly walk backwards as she stumbled again. “I do believe you’ve had too much rum, darling.”

“Don’t ‘darling’ me, Devorak!” The wind picked up, filling the sails and jerking the ship forward again, and Vissenta pinwheeled her arms in an attempt to find her balance. “My tolerance is… oof!” She landed square on her bottom, hard enough that she knew there’d be a bruise. “Ow!”

Laughing, Julian strode forward to pull her back to standing. “We should still get you to the cabin.” He jerked his head to the rough-hewn railing surrounding the steps down.

The thought of the cabin, a berth barely large enough for the both of them, bore down on Vissenta suddenly. She wasn’t prone to claustrophobia, or at least she didn’t think she’d ever been, but the alcohol, nerves, vague shame over the dirty looks Portia had shot her way all afternoon, and the fact that they were bobbing along on open water all collided to knock her back on her ass before she could make her way to the bottom of the steps that led belowdecks. She’d just been down there earlier, to help shove things around and get a sense of how truly _tiny_ it was, but that was in the bright broad light of day. There was something _wrong_ about belowdecks of a ship at night, she was sure of it, something clawing at the back of her mind and screaming at her that to go down there was to…

She sat down on the top stair and tried her best to breathe through the tightening sense of panic in her chest. “I…” She gulped.

Julian’s face was instantly a portrait of concern and worry. He sat next to Vissenta, wrapping one arm around her shoulders. “Vis?”

She rubbed at her breastbone, gulping for air, and closed her eyes. “Sorry. I… maybe it was too much to drink.”

Julian began to rub small circles between Vissenta’s shoulder blades. “That’s a lie. I’ve seen you drink Muriel under the table.”

“Not hard to do,” Vissenta mumbled in half-hearted protest. “He never drinks.”

“My point,” Julian began, still applying gentle pressure. “My point is that a few mouthfuls of rum isn’t the problem here.” His hand traveled up, stroking at her neck, then along her jawline, until finally he gently placed a finger under her chin to turn her face towards his.

Vissenta focused on the feeling of Julian next to her, on the knowledge that he was there and real, and that whatever cold dread had washed over her before was something imaginary, something only half-remembered. Her heartbeat gradually slowed back down to normal, and she unconsciously tilted her face to nuzzle against Julian’s hand. When she finally opened her eyes, he smiled and planted a quick kiss on her lips. “Wait here.” He handed her the bottle, stood, and turned back the way they came, threading his way through crates and barrels to take a different set of stairs down to the galley.

Vissenta looked at the bottle and sighed. With her other hand she fished in her waist pack, unbuttoning the inner pocket that held her cards and running her thumb along the soft, worn edges until she felt one call to her. She drew the card out from the deck and held it up to catch the fading rosy sunset glow. The two of swords. _Weighing choices, at an impasse_. She frowned. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“What was that?”

At the sound of Julian’s voice, Vissenta started. She slid the card back into the pack and turned her head the flash him a weak smile. “That was quick.”

Grinning, Julian held up two items - a salt cellar and a lime. “This is better with a particular distilled spirit only found in the deserts of Nopal,” he said. He began the descent towards the cabins. “But we can have a glorious time with rum, too.”

Vissenta quirked an eyebrow. “Oh?” She stood up on unsteady legs and braced herself with the aid of the railing. “What kind of glorious time?”

Julian’s grin curled up on one side, taking a turn for the shameless and lewd. “A way to help you relax, my dear.”

With that sort of incentive, Vissenta found it a little easier to walk down the steps. She kept her eyes trained on Julian, kept her mind focused on the singular promise glinting in his gaze, and before long, they entered the narrow cabin. She flicked her fingers towards the small glass orb she’d brought to serve as lamplight, and it filled the space with a warm golden glow.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Vissenta sat the bottle down on a small plank braced against the wall that she supposed was meant to serve as a shelf. “The cabin in Death’s realm was bigger.”

Julian leaned down behind her, laughing, and his breath tickled her ear. “As those were captain’s quarters, I’d expect so.” He sat the salt and lime down on the shelf to join the rum bottle and, with his hands free, immediately went to stroking Vissenta’s hips and sides. “Now, if I did what I have in mind in the captain’s quarters on this ship, Mazelinka would have my hide.”

Vissenta took one of his hands and started tugging at his gloves. “And why is that?”

“The extraordinary _mess_ it would make.”

With a smirk Vissenta twisted around to face him. “Are we christening this cabin?”

“Different sort of mess.” Julian finished what Vissenta started and tossed aside his gloves carelessly. “…well, I suppose that sort of mess, too, maybe. But first, your relaxation treatment.”

Vissenta pulled his shirt from his waistband. “Tell me more, Doctor Devorak.”

Julian mirrored her movements, tugging her shirt up over her head before she had the chance to remove his, but he helpfully obliged by casting his aside too. He reached for her hair and unwound the thin cord at the end of her braid and ran his fingers through the dark waves, burnished deep bronze in the orblight. It fell down around her shoulders, some longer strands just barely brushing her newly-freed nipples, and Julian looked like he was drinking her in, one gray eye tracing the curves of her in the glow. “Gods, you’re beautiful.”

Something echoed in the back of Vissenta’s mind, something that sounded suspiciously like Asra’s voice saying the same thing, and she tamped it down as she reached up to run her fingers along Julian’s collarbone. “That doesn’t sound like a medical affliction.” She tugged his eyepatch up and off his head, stroking a long auburn curl back from his forehead. “My treatment, doctor.”

Julian cocked a brow and, with both eyes visible, gave an exaggerated wink. “The picture of efficiency, you are. Always so direct.”

“Mm.” Vissenta tilted her head to one side and pressed her bare breasts against Julian’s chest. “I would like to directly ask you if we’re going to fuck.”

As predictable as the sunset, Julian blushed. “A drink first, maybe?” He managed to tear himself away from Vissenta long enough to pull the knife from his hip pocket and cut slices of the bright green citrus fruit perched next to the rum bottle. “After all, fruit consumption is crucial to good health aboard a sailing vessel.”

Vissenta couldn’t help her snort of laughter. “I was having a panic attack, Julian, not scurvy.”

That concerned look crossed Julian’s face once more and he sat down the knife and the lime to cup Vissenta’s face in his hands. He ran his thumbs along her cheekbones. “You’re all right now, aren’t you? Tell me you’re all right.”

She gave a wan smile. “I’m fine. Really. Something just felt… off.” Before Julian could continue to fret over her, she nodded at the rum and assorted accoutrements on the shelf beside them. “So, the lime makes sense, but the salt cellar?”

Julian grinned sheepishly. “Well, like I said, it’s ah… it’s better with that Nopalese spirit, you know the one, the one they make from the cacti out there, but—“

“Get on with it!”

“Right.” Julian slid the top of the salt cellar back and took out a few of the coarse white grains between his thumb and forefinger. “It turns out that rum will do, in a pinch. In this case it’s less about the taste and more about the…” His gaze wandered back to Vissenta, back to the curve of her chest, and he licked his lips. “Ritual, you could say.”

Vissenta raised her eyebrows. “A ritual? You? I thought that was for us magical folk.”

Without warning, Julian perched a wedge of lime between Vissenta’s lips. “Hold this.”

Vissenta was about to spit the fruit back out into his face when Julian bent further to lick the tip of her breast. He delicately placed the salt on her fast-pebbling areola and straightened up just enough to take hold of the rum bottle’s neck. “And so,” he said, and licked the salt, giving her nipple an extra, lasciviously long swipe of his tongue, tracing a circle, humming happily when she gasped. He stood back up and took a long pull from the rum, and then leaned down to take the wedge of lime from her mouth. He bit down, some of the juice running down his lips, and delicately removed it. “Like so.”

Vissenta took a moment to come back to her senses. “Needlessly elaborate,” she breathed out. “You could do that without the salt.”

“Humor me, Vis.” Julian handed her the bottle. “Your turn.”

* * *

Later, wearing Julian’s shirt and only his shirt, Vissenta stared at the soft glow of the orblight swaying gently overhead in their cabin. “Ilya?”

“Mm?” His sleepy answer was slow and lazy, but he resumed tracing circles just below her navel. “‘S wrong?”

She sighed. “Nothing.” She disentangled herself from his arms briefly to gently touch the lamp to put it out, and then crawled back to bed, where the sound of Julian’s breathing had already slowed into the even, deep rhythm of sleep. She sighed, looking up into the inky darkness, and tried her best to join him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a tiny bit of lemon, as a treat.


	3. Ça passe eine fois par an

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An apology, an admission, an abduction.

“Hoi! Look lively!” Mazelinka looked over her shoulder from her spot at the tiller, her face breaking into a gap-toothed grin in the glow of the lights dancing on the Parletris harbor. “Cita! Elka! In the rigging! You too, Ilya!”

They’d sighted the harbor earlier in the afternoon, and with the promise of docking just in time for a real dinner and the Midnight Market, the placid routine aboard the _Lilinka_ erupted into excited, chattering chaos. Ladon worked to secure the guns and cannons, taking such tender care with his gunpowders and iron slugs that one might think they were made of gold. Ketos disappeared into the galley to catalog their provisions, comparing his notes for the market with Mazelinka’s. Mazelinka was quick to put Julian to work with Cita and Elka, presumably because they were all hopeless at accomplishing anything separately but could be counted on to pool their talents well enough as a group - or, at least, they were told that they could, with a waggle of Mazelinka’s spoon to drive the point home.

In the hubbub, Vissenta felt at a loss. She assumed that being on board the _Lilinka_ meant she would have some sort of job, some sort of task to accomplish, some sort of assignment doled out by the shrewd captain, but unfortunately for her, the shrewd captain doted on her even more than she did the pair of red-haired miscreants she called her grandchildren. “Pah!” Mazelinka waved a hand when Vissenta climbed up to the tiller deck to finally ask her what to do. “You’re my ship magician. Make sure Ilyushka doesn’t break his neck falling from the rigging.”

Vissenta frowned. “But—“

“No buts!” Mazelinka gave her a broad wink. “Take the job I give you, girl, and be glad it’s not any harder.”

With a sigh, Vissenta trudged back down to the main deck and hoisted herself up onto a barrel. She crossed her arms and looked up, catching sight of Julian and the twins every once in a while through the billowing of the sails. Julian stepped nimbly along the spreaders, navigating his way through timber and rope and canvas with uncanny agility. Vissenta cracked a small smile at just how easily he moved, how relaxed and happy his face looked as he laughed at a teasing jibe from Cita. She felt her smile fade as the sudden memory of Asra’s lips burned like a brand of shame against hers. _Stop this. You’re with Julian. And he never has to know._ Still, her hand went to her throat, where she’d threaded the jasper pendant on the soft leather cord that she normally wore as a plain stranded choker.

_“What’s that?” Julian had noticed the pendant, of course, but he didn’t peer too closely at it, or he might have seen the etchings on its surface._

_Vissenta waved her hand. “Something I found in a drawer somewhere. Must’ve been in the shop this whole time.” The lie came a little too easily, but she didn’t want to explain that Asra had been giving her jewelry before they’d left. Explaining the jewelry would lead to explaining other things, and she resolved for Julian to not know for as long as possible, not until she’d come up with a better explanation than “it was an accident.”_

“Hey, could you give me a hand?”

Vissenta nearly jumped from her skin at Portia’s voice behind her. She swiveled around, gaping her mouth open and closed in astonishment. For being in relatively tight quarters on board a ship, Portia managed to spend their entire voyage thus far avoiding Vissenta like, well, the plague. Even Julian had begun to notice, though when he questioned them both he was met with careful avoidance on Vissenta’s part and stony silence on Portia’s. He’d let it drop, though not without some mild concern every once in a while, but as the two women weren’t actively at each others’ throats, he seemed resigned to letting this one work itself out.

Apparently, Portia was ready to work it out.

With some relief Vissenta saw that Portia wasn’t holding any large blunt objects, or even small sharp ones, which made facing her fate a little easier to bear. “Portia—“

Portia crossed her arms. “We can talk while we work.” She jerked her head back towards a cluster of barrels, where she’d set up an array of empty jugs, bottles, and jars. “Can’t sell this if it’s not divvied up, y’know.”

Grateful for a task, Vissenta hopped down from the barrel she sat on, fervently hoping that Portia wouldn’t decide to take one of the larger stone jugs to her skull during their conversation. She crossed and uncrossed her arms as they walked. “Portia, what you saw—“

Portia handed Vissenta a jug. “Hold this.” She hefted a barrel on top of a crate and crouched down to fix a crude tap at the bottom. She waved Vissenta down. “Now hold it down here.”

Obediently, Vissenta held the mouth of the jug up to the tap as Portia turned the handle to let a stream of clear liquid, stained ever so slightly orange, flow from the barrel. A heady, herbal smell assaulted Vissenta’s senses, followed by the sharp tang of alcohol. She coughed. “Portia, I’m trying to tell you I’m sorry, and that it wasn’t what it looked like.”

Portia had another jug in her hands and turned the tap off just before Vissenta’s jug overflowed. She swapped the full one for the empty one and turned the tap back on again. “It looked to me like you were kissing Asra.”

“No, Asra was kissing me,” Vissenta mumbled.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Asra was kissing you.” Portia finally looked up at Vissenta. “Listen, I can’t judge. Too much.” She turned off the tap and handed Vissenta another jug. “Mila- Nadia said the thing about not sharing, but that was just one of her jokes.” She pushed a sweaty curl from her forehead and started to busy herself with corking the jugs as Vissenta continued to fill them. “But me and mila- Nadia have talked about it, y’know? We agreed to all that stuff before we started making it serious. We don’t have to be exclusive. We just have to be together.”

Vissenta laughed weakly. “Did she have you sign some official documents about it?”

To her surprise, Portia giggled at the poor attempt at a joke. “Close enough! Lots of written pros and cons lists.” She shook her head, smiling affectionately, and moved on to tap the next barrel. This one was for the glass bottles, and the heady-smelling liquor that flowed into them seemed to sparkle with aquamarine light. She cut a glance at Vissenta. “But something tells me you and Ilya haven’t had that kind of talk.”

Vissenta felt her face flush. “I… no. I mean, we don’t need to—“

“Do you love my brother?” Portia interrupted Vissenta’s scrambling with a pointed stare.

“I. What?” Vissenta blinked and her blush spread to her ears. “I don’t know, Portia, does your brother love me?”

Portia nearly knocked over a bottle as she corked it. “Of course he does! He’s crazy about you! Everyone here can see it!” She righted the bottle once more. “It’s the only reason I didn’t deck you as soon as we left Vesuvia!”

“Thanks,” Vissenta muttered. She sniffed the bottle she’d just finished filling. “Is this cloudwort liqueur?”

Portia handed her an empty bottle. “Don’t change the subject.”

Vissenta sighed. “I do love Ilya. I really do. But…” The corners of her mouth turned down and she shook her head. “Forget it. You don’t need to know all of this.”

“Uh, yeah, I do.” Portia moved on to the third and final barrel, jars at the ready. “Now pay attention, these fill up fast.” She tapped the barrel and sure enough, the squat, round glass jar in her hand was filled almost instantly with something deep green that smelled of earth and pine. “Ilya’s my brother, and he’s a pain in the ass, but I don’t want to see him hurt.” She flashed Vissenta a playful smile. “Can you imagine the melodramatic monologues I’d have to listen to if you broke his heart?”

Try as she might, Vissenta couldn’t quite join in on the joke. She turned her attention to filling the jars instead, and after a few minutes finally spoke. “He’s only told me he loved me once. And I mean… we kind of thought we were gonna die in the Devil’s realm.” Her shoulders slumped. “I mean, I think he still does, but… he doesn’t even sleep over at the shop, and I thought we’d all made up with Asra, but he still gets so weird about Asra sometimes, I can tell, even if he doesn’t let on…” She trailed off to catch her breath. “It sounds pretty stupid when I say it out loud, huh?”

Portia shook her head. “I will never understand straight people.”

Vissenta raised her eyebrows. “Portia, you know that your brother and I are both bisexual.”

“Gods, that’s somehow even worse!” Portia winked at Vissenta and took the last jar from her hand. “Would you look at that. Just enough for us to have a little to drink.” She took an empty cup from nearby, sitting there as if she’d planned to sample some of the wares anyway, and tipped half the meager contents of the jar into it before handing it to Vissenta. She raised the jar. “Friends?”

Vissenta nodded. “Friends.”

They both knocked back the drink, and just as quickly both began to cough violently. Vissenta felt tears spring up in her eyes. “What is this?”

“Something with calendula,” Portia wheezed. “Mazelinka makes a killing selling it. She told me it’s gonna be the hottest item at the Midnight Market.”

Vissenta sniffed at her empty cup. “Calendula?” She wiped the tears from her eyes. “It’s just a mild painkiller. Nothing magical about it.”

Portia winked. “But just what people want at the Carnaval Des Foiles.” She stood, wiping her hands on her apron, and helped Vissenta up. “Come on! I’m not gonna let Ilya win the race off the ship.”

* * *

“Oh, Vis, you’ll love the Carnaval.” Julian checked his pockets one last time and, with a flourish, swirled his overcoat on with more panache than strictly necessary. “The Masquerade was fun, the Masquerade is always fun, but for a really rowdy time, nothing beats the Carnaval Des Foiles.”

Parletris’ annual celebration of excess was, indeed, legendary, though these days it was more of a spectacle for tourists than anything else. There were ancient customs attached to the Carnaval, people said, but the rumor of those customs ranged anywhere from mild stories of criminal coverups to deeper, darker legends of religious cults and ritual sacrifice. Whatever the origin, what remained was a week-long party of parades and nights without end and an influx of traders from the world over coming to ply their wares with the gullible and obscenely wealthy. It was said that Lucio tried to outrank the Carnaval with his Masquerades, but with Parletris’ special brand of mystique, the Count’s parties never lived up to the standard.

Something about the words in the foreign yet familiar tongue whenever someone said “Carnaval Des Foiles” made Vissenta rub her temples, another headache itching at the edge of her brain. With a shiver at the encroaching night chill, she shrugged on her shawl, a beloved gray thing lumpy with dropped stitches and uneven pattern work from the month she spent trying to learn knitting from Asra. “You think every time is a rowdy time, don’t you?”

“Me? Perish the thought.” Julian grinned down at her. “Come on. Let’s race Pasha down to the dock.”

Portia had long since beaten them to the punch, though, and was waving madly from the bottom of the gangplank. “Rotten eggs!” She hollered up at them both through cupped hands. “You’re both the rottenest, stinkiest eggs on the high seas! And that’s saying something with Ketos’ cooking!”

Vissenta smiled at Julian’s huff of disappointed surprise and took his hand. “Can’t win ‘em all, Ilya.” She felt light and buoyant once more, the conversation with Portia lightening more from her shoulders than she could have imagined possible, and she practically skipped down the gangplank after Julian.

She felt a wave of dizziness when her feet hit the dock. Her senses were suddenly overwhelmed, scrabbling for purchase on something concrete, but it was all so new, and yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew this place, and as the scents of fried food and strong drink and sweet coffee assaulted her nostrils, she was dimly aware that the sound of music was fading from her ears as Julian and Portia both bent over her stumbling form.

“Vis!”

“Vissenta!”

“Vissenta, darling, are you all right?”

Their voices blended together in a jumbled chorus of concern, but all Vissenta could hear was the blood rushing to her head as her vision faded in and out. She grasped the pendant, desperately looking for an anchor, and with a flash of heat that radiated from her fingertips to her arm to her head, she caught herself and found her footing once more. The sights and smells and sounds righted themselves, and a word popped into her mind with the start of a dizzying reel struck up from somewhere close by. “Hurdy-gurdy.”

Julian gripped her shoulders, his visible eye alight with confusion. “Pardon?”

Vissenta took a deep breath and smiled up at him. “That sound. That’s called a hurdy-gurdy, isn’t it?” Before Julian could answer, she grabbed his hand once more. “Come on. I’m ready to dance.”

* * *

Parletris was more magnificent than Vissenta could have dreamed.

As far as she knew, she’d never set foot in this city. As far back as she could remember, she’d never set foot outside of Vesuvia, save for her journeys into the Arcana realm, and she felt that those hardly counted as traveling when all was said and done. But Parletris…

It was all she’d dreamed and more.

The cobblestone streets weren’t any more remarkable than those of Vesuvia at first glance, but where Vesuvia was a jumble of smooth stone buildings lined with canals, Parletris felt so much stranger, so much darker, covered in wrought iron and climbing vines and the glow of lamplight reflecting off the puddles between the stones beneath her feet. The Carnaval was in full swing already, with revelers leaning from their balconies to shout at those partying below, occasionally throwing coins and trinkets into the crowd. One particularly ambitious group of masked tourists on the street were trying to catch a stream of bubbling golden wine in their mouths as those on the balconies poured it down to them. It was a vision she’d seen before, but the good dreams never stuck with her the way the panic-laden ones did, and it was only seeing it all in front of her, ripe for the picking, that made her remember those fleeting images once more.

She started to laugh, absolutely giddy on the feeling of her good dreams finally coming true, and she turned to look over her shoulder at Julian. “What should we do first?”

The last traces of concern disappeared from Julian’s face at the sight of Vissenta’s smile. He matched it, mirth tugging his lips upward, and he looped an arm around her waist. “Wherever the night takes you, my dear.”

Vissenta took his chin in her hand and pulled his face down to hers for a kiss, still laughing, still swaying her hips to the rhythm of the reels spooling out through the streets, a melange of vielle and accordion and hurdy-gurdy and curious, shallow drums that the players tapped with rapid double-strokes from a single short stick in their free hand. A shrill tin whistle sounded, and the crowd seemed to move as one to clear the street, and Vissenta craned her neck to see what was happening. She didn’t have to work hard to see the spectacle coming their way: banners of all colors, confetti and clouds of perfumed smoke peppering the air, and more music, so much more music. She saw a group of performers in bright silks walk by on stilts and shrieked in delight. “This is amazing!”

Julian tightened his hold on her waist and kissed the top of her head. “I’m just happy to see you smile again,” he replied.

Portia finally caught up to them, her responsibilities to Mazelinka apparently finished for the night. “Whew! I could use some dinner and a drink!”

Vissenta grinned back at her. “I like the way you think.”

The three pushed their way through the throng, following the smell of something sweet until they came upon a crowded, covered patio, where people had plates heaped high with pillowy-soft squares of fried dough dusted in enough powdered sugar to make Selasi blush. Vissenta pointed. “There. I want those.”

Finding a table was easy enough, and before long they all fell upon their own platter of pastries, washing it all down with strong, sweet, milky coffee that had an aftertaste Vissenta couldn’t quite place. It was something so familiar, like the lilting language she caught snatches of all around them, like the rhythm of the music that plucked her heartstrings in a way she’d never known before, like the spectacle of masked revelers that she’d only heard about but could swear she’d seen before, and not just at the Masquerade. She sat back, blissful, until she felt something - or someone - tug at the pack belted to her waist.

In an instant she pulled her athame on the pickpocket. “Excuse you,” she snarled, flashing the small but sharp blade in the young man’s face.

He was a boy, surely not more than fifteen, and he backed away, holding up his hands and putting on an easy, charming smile. “Pardon, pardon, _mam'selle,_ ” he began. He looked ready to launch into a practiced spiel that he kept on hand for getting caught, but his eyes wandered down to the pendant at Vissenta’s neck.

All the color drained from his face in an instant and he backed away in such a hurry that he nearly knocked over the chair behind him. “A thousand pardons,” he stammered out, looking as if he’d seen a ghost, and before Vissenta, Julian, or Portia could stop him, he disappeared into the crowd.

Slowly, puzzled, Vissenta hooked the curved handle of her knife back into her waist belt. “What did he see?” She mused aloud, her eyes still darting around to try and pick the young man out of the ever-shifting crowd, to no avail.

Julian leaned over. “What’s on that pendant?”

Vissenta’s hand shot up to the necklace and she curled her fingers around the purple stone. “Nothing. Just an old trinket I found, I told you.”

Julian furrowed his brow. “No, there’s something on it…” He squinted, and then looked up at Vissenta with mild surprise. “How did you get something with the Sauvage mark on it?”

Blinking, Vissenta let her hand drop. “The what?”

Julian reached out to touch the carving on the stone. “The crest of the Sauvage family.” He frowned. “They, hm… they haven’t been seen in public for years, but they’re legendary around here.” He leaned back in his seat. “I haven’t been in this port since before the plague started in Vesuvia, but Vis… that’s guaranteed protection in this city.”

“So that’s why Asra gave it to you!” Portia clapped her hand over her mouth as soon as the words came out.

VIssenta’s heart sank as Julian schooled his features into a mask of casual indifference. “Ah, Asra, was it?” He reached into an inner pocket in his coat and fished out some coins - real gold this time, not the stuff he’d used in the Red Market on a day that felt like a lifetime ago - and slapped them down onto the table. “Well, since you have your special magician’s protection, let’s venture out into the Carnaval, hm?”

Portia mouth a silent, red-faced “I’m sorry” at Vissenta as Julian stood. She pushed back from the table to join him, and they both looked down at Vissenta expectantly.

Vissenta crossed her arms. “Are we doing this now? Here?”

Julian’s expression sank further into something distant, and hard, and unreadable, and it felt like a punch to Vissenta’s gut. “No idea what you’re talking about, Vis.”

She threw up her hands. “You know what? You two go on ahead. I want another coffee, and like you said, I’ve got my super special secret _protection_ here.” She crossed one leg over the other, then mirrored the action with her arms. “I’ll meet you both back at the docks.”

Portia looked ready to cry, or yell, or both, but Julian rested a hand on her shoulder. “Come on, Pasha,” he muttered, and turned to go. He didn’t look as if he’d wait, and with another furtive “I’m so sorry” and “I’ll talk to him, I promise,” Portia turned to follow.

Vissenta sighed and looked into the dregs of her coffee cup. She signaled a passing waiter and, with a strained smile, asked for more coffee and pastry ( _beignets_ , he told her, smiling, but she could swear that he also looked at the pendant, and could swear there was a flinch when he did, and his smile froze and he bowed his head and scurried off), and sat back to consider her options.

It was a stupid argument, she knew that.The night was young, and they’d been having so much fun, and was it worth it, really, to argue over the past when they were looking for a future? But then again, she wasn’t certain Julian was planning on a future with her. She felt the hot sting of tears, then, thinking about how he was so careful with her, so reserved, sometimes, even when they were in the throes of fucking. And with Julian it was always fucking, but not even that, just so much like being unsure teenagers that she nearly couldn’t stand it, and she longed for the messy clash that she and Asra had back when they were still actually teenagers running wild in the Vesuvian streets if things were going to be that way, and felt so guilty for the longing immediately after, and, and, and…

Another mountain of steaming, sugary-soft beignets appeared in front of her, along with a cup of that alluring milky coffee, and she smiled at the waiter once more. The man looked a little more nervous now, but Vissenta supposed it was the strange crest she apparently wore on her neck. _I’ll have to ask Asra about that one,_ she thought, taking a long sip of the coffee.

When she brought a pastry to her lips, she surprised herself by dropping it in her lap, scattering the snowy white sugar all over her loose black trousers. She felt her lips tingling, going numb, and in an instant of panic began to scrabble for her pouch, to find one of the herb sachets she kept for emergencies, but her fingers fumbled, feeling like lead weights attached to her hand. She opened her mouth and tried to scream, to shout for Julian and Portia, but no sound emerged.

As her vision began to go black, she heard the young pickpocket’s voice in her ear. “I’m so sorry, _mam'selle._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Hey! If you aren't following along, please check me out on tumblr: vissenta-senadz.tumblr.com. If you check my "arcana eotp" tag, you'll find a lot of the lore I've been writing for Vissenta and for Parletris for the Echoes Of The Past event. It's a great project just in general (arcana-echoes.tumblr.com), and in tackling some of the prompts I've been able to flesh out parts of Vissenta's story that are about to come racing into this story full-tilt!


	4. Interlude: Tante Nell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A memory from the past.

**Vesuvia, 10 Years Ago**

“Nell!” Asra pounded on the bright green door of the magic shop, casting furtive glances around in the fading daylight. He lowered his voice just a touch, trying not to draw more attention than necessary, though this was a tall order with Muriel right behind him holding a shivering, half-conscious girl in a stained and ripped white linen shift. “Nell!”

Abruptly, the door fell back from beneath his fist, and he nearly stumbled into the woman who answered. A frown was etched into the deep lines around her mouth, lines that were echoed in her high forehead. She was clad in a simple green kirtle, belted at the waist with pouches attached to the worn brown leather, with a cream-colored blouse beneath, sleeves rolled up to bare stoutly muscled, tanned arms that had done their fair share of hard work. A sweep of salt-and-pepper hair curled into a voluminous bun atop her head made her already tall frame look all the more imposing, and the glittering silver eyes peering out from her handsome, olive-toned face completed the picture of a woman who brooked no nonsense. At the moment, Asra felt exactly like the sort of nonsense she was not having, and withered slightly under her stare.

Muriel felt no such compunction, though. “We need help,” he said, eyes level with Nell’s. He nodded his chin down to the girl in his arms. “She needs help.”

Nell’s eyes flicked from Asra to Muriel to the pale, dark-haired girl. When she took a closer look at the girl’s face, the high cheekbones and strong eyebrows and skin that was sallow now but clearly once bore the bronzed glow just like another girl she knew a lifetime ago, her eyes widened ever so slightly. “Come in,” she relented, and stepped back from the doorway. She looked up and down the street behind them, on high alert for prying eyes, and snapped her fingers to extinguish the lantern hanging by the shop sign.

With the door locked and bolted and magicked behind them, Nell swept past Muriel to swat at Asra’s hand, which had wandered to the astrolabe. “No touching,” she warned, though her voice carried gruff affection, the words well-worn and routine. She pointed to the curtain at the back of the shop’s front room. “Through to the back room, then up the stairs. Put her on the bed while I draw a bath.” Her gaze sharpened, flicking back and forth between the two boys. “And come up with the quickest way to explain yourselves. There’s no time to waste, judging by the state of her.”

The boys obeyed, Muriel taking the stairs two at a time and Asra hurrying behind him, while Nell took a moment to touch the orb of crystal that sat in the center of the back room table. It flickered to life, softly glowing the deep red of a rich, jammy wine she’d not tasted in decades. She sighed and moved her hand from the crystal to the deck of cards, frayed and soft at the edges, illustrated with red and blue patterns and figures entirely unlike the lushly-illustrated cards used by the readers of Vesuvia. « _I didn’t want it to be true_ ,» she murmured in Parlet, a tear pricking the edge of her eye. She shook her head and let the moment of self-indulgence pass, making her way up the stairs to her apartment above.

When the bath was drawn, she returned to her bedroom to see Asra hovering over the girl with an expression of pure, smitten worry. Nell sighed. “You can’t fall in love with every pretty face you see, young mister Alnazar.”

Asra looked up abruptly, his cheeks gone red, and shook his head. “Of course I’m not, Nell. I’m just… concerned.”

Nell raised her eyebrows at Muriel, who crossed his arms and matched her expression. “We’re both worried.”

With a fondly exasperated sigh, Nell took a small golden knife from her belt, where it was attached only by its curved handle. She gingerly lifted the neckline of the girl’s stained shift, gently peeling it away from the spots where it had stuck to her skin with dried blood, and shook her head. “You poor thing,” she whispered, almost tender, and then began to cut away at the dingy fabric.

She could hear Asra and Muriel both make noises of surprise and turn around as she pulled the shift open. When she went to cut away the fabric covering the girl’s right arm, she drew in a sharp breath at what she saw along the upper arm, just below the bend of the shoulder. Four parallel lines, dark as cherry wood, stark against the girl’s clammy white skin. _«It can’t be,»_ she murmured.

Asra turned at the sound of the unfamiliar words, but whipped his blushing face back toward the wall at the sight of the girl’s bared breasts. He swallowed and took a deep breath. “She told us her name is Vissenta,” he said to Nell, his voice suddenly cracking.

“Did she now,” Nell replied, switching back to the Common tongue, brisk and businesslike once more. At the hem of the shift, she could see a pocket, sewn in with clumsy, uneven stitches, and felt something within, heavy and oval-shaped, something that fit neatly into her palm. Her heart sank, and she knew what she would find before she even cut away the last few stitches that had been added with coarser thread and a larger needle. A purple pendant fell into her hand, and she ran her thumb over the etched crown and blades on its surface. “Catarina,” she breathed.

“No, Vissenta.” Asra and Muriel were still resolutely staring at the wall with their backs turned, but Asra seemed to have recovered well enough to slip back into his easy, cheeky tone. “We found her at the docks. I think she tried to steal some food and got beaten for it.” His tone grew pleading. “We couldn’t just leave her there, Nell. We couldn’t!”

Nell slipped one strong arm around the girl’s back and lifted her gently from the bed to take her to the bath. “Of course you couldn’t. You were right to bring her here.” With one last look over her shoulder at the pair, she walked through the door to lower the girl into the porcelain tub. “You can come back to see her tomorrow. Go, get some sleep. Jamil owes me a favor, so tell him I’ve sent you. He ought to have an empty room tonight, since it’s the off-season.”

With the boys gone, Nell turned her attention back to the girl, switching back to her native language as she carefully washed her matted brown hair. _«Nothing will hurt you while you’re here,»_ she murmured, and then slipped into singing the snatches of an old lullaby she remembered from her youth as she dabbed the girl's scrapes and bruises with a soft cloth infused with a healing poultice.

* * *

Vivien woke slowly, and only when she was fully conscious did she realize that she was in a soft bed, covered with a faded quilt, and wearing a nightgown that was clean and soft and warm. She sat bolt upright and looked around, wild-eyed, thinking for a moment that she was back at the estate, that her nightmare of an escape was about to begin again. But the sunlight filtering through the jewel-like stained glass window on the opposite wall was warmer, somehow, than the sun in Parletris, and after a few heart-pounding seconds she realized that there were no quilts on the estate, that she’d grown up sleeping beneath plush coverlets. Then she remembered her shift. 

The pendant.

She threw the quilt back and scrambled out of the bed, ready to tear the room apart to find the mottled purple jasper stone, when her eyes fell upon the bedside table. There the pendant lay, now threaded with loops of black leather cord, as if she’d laid it there the night before to put it back on in the morning. She hesitated, but after a minute, she did just that, letting the cool brass setting rest on her collarbone, and looked for the door.

She crept down an unfamiliar set of stairs into a cozy room with a purple-draped table at its center, with only a crystal ball and a slow-burning stick of incense upon it, and a curtain for a door that was held back in a large hook on the smooth, carved wooden frame of the opening that led to a larger room, with bright light shining through.

“Come in, girl. I know you’re awake.” The voice that greeted her was brusque, but with an undercurrent of warmth.

Vissenta walked through the doorway into a room so much like the magic shops of Parletris that her breath caught in her throat. Shelves lined the walls, crammed full of labeled jars and vials of herbs and tinctures, while more herbs hung from the rafters to dry. Glass orbs, all emitting soft light, hung suspended in knotted cradles of jute cord, just like the ones she’d seen for sale at the Midnight Market on her few jaunts into town with Marcelie. And next to the door was a glass case, with all manner of treasures displayed on jewel-toned velvet inside, and a smooth surface strewn with embroidered cloth runners and squat candlesticks and crystals of all sizes and shapes for sale.

Behind the glass-paned counter, holding a steaming mug in one hand and a sweet roll in the other, was the woman who’d called her in. The woman she assumed had cleaned her up, washed her hair, put her to bed, and put her pendant where she could find it. The corners of her mouth were turned down, but it seemed that this was simply their permanent resting state, and not any indication of her moods, as her eyes held warmth and worry. _How did I get here?_ Then she remembered: the boy, with the fluffy white hair and the purple eyes. _Asra_. _He said his name was Asra._

“Asra tells me your name is Vissenta,” the woman said, and she nodded toward another mug and teapot sitting on the counter in front of her, next to a basket of more of those soft sweet rolls. When Vivien’s stomach audibly growled, her eyes crinkled up in the closest she seemed to get to a smile. “Eat. Please.”

Vivien - _Vissenta, I’m Vissenta now_ , she reminded herself - fell upon the pastry and tea with ravenous abandon. All she could think of was the sweet, spiced bread, and the hot herbal infusion that scalded her tongue so deliciously, tasting of chicory, of all things, tasting like _home_ , and so she let her guard down at the woman’s next question.

_«What is your real name?»_

“Vivien,” she replied, and then she realized what she’d done. She nearly spat out the bread in her horror and looked at the woman with wide eyes, her blood running cold. Of course there were people here from Parletris. There were people in Vesuvia from everywhere, that’s what she’d overheard while hiding out in the cramped storage below the decks of the ship she’d taken. Still, her heart felt as if it had dropped to her stomach, and she wondered if she might need to vomit.

The woman didn’t look to bear her any ill will, though. _«I knew your maman,»_ she continued, still speaking Parlet. _«Once. Long ago. We were… friends.»_ She refilled her mug of tea and gestured at Vivien’s cup, topping it off when the stricken young woman held it out automatically. _«Vivien. A lovely name. You’d best forget it here.»_

Vivien - Vissenta - gulped down the bread. _«Who are you?»_

The woman shook her head and her next words were in the common tongue, with no inflection of Parlet whatsoever. “Common here, from now on. And we must work on getting rid of your accent, Vissenta.”

Vissenta nodded mutely, wide-eyed. “I…” She took a breath, tried her best to mimic the flat affect of Common, tried to leave behind the smooth sway of her mother tongue. “I will do my best.”

The woman nodded, apparently satisfied. “Good. And you may call me Nell. Your Tante Nell.” She reached across the counter to grasp Vissenta’s fingers and gave them a quick but strong, reassuring squeeze. “Aunt Nell, in front of everyone else. But Tante is fine for just the two of us.”


	5. Crestfallen Sidekick In An Old Cafe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Julian must pull his head out of his ass, and Vissenta must learn something crucial to her survival.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holiday weekend! I've had nothing but time to write for once, so enjoy this veritable feast of updates.

In her life, Portia had seen Julian make some remarkably stupid decisions. There was turning himself in for a murder he didn’t commit, for one. There was picking fights with people twice his size when they were kids. There was the time he tried to trim Pepi’s nails because, as he’d claimed, “there is no way a cat’s claws should be that long.” (He’d gotten some real nasty scratches from that one, worse than just the pinpricks of Pepi making biscuits in his lap.) But this decision? The decision to pick a fight with the supposed love of his life and then storm off without actually following through on it? The decision to then find the closest bar and proceed to get absolutely shitfaced? This was, in Portia’s opinion, the single stupidest decision of her brother’s life thus far.

She leaned on the scratched and scarred wooden table, propping her chin on one palm as Julian proceeded to drain his fourth drink in rapid succession. Whatever the drink was, it smelled and tasted like pure alcohol, saved only by the fact that most of the spirits involved were sweetly aromatic, and that the flavor mellowed as the single large block of ice in the glass melted and diluted the contents. She was still only on her first, idly stirring the bright red concoction with its lemon peel garnish, but Julian didn’t seem to notice - or care - that he was on the fast track to alcohol poisoning.

He finally came to his senses when the barmaid plunked a glass of water in front of him instead of a fifth drink. “Ah, cutting me off already?” He flashed her a crooked, woozy grin and held up his empty lowball glass. “Come now, you can refill this one. I promise I’ll - _hic_ \- slow down.”

The barmaid rolled her eyes and looked at Portia. “He is your brother, _oui_?” She held up three fingers. “Three brothers, all drunks. Make him drink the water.”

Portia gave the young woman a look of commiserating kinship. “Bless you.” When the barmaid swept away, she resumed staring at Julian in irritation. “It would be easier to just apologize to Vissenta, you know.”

Julian stared glumly at the glass of water, apparently unwilling to put anything in his body that hadn’t been fermented first. “Why bother? She probably hates me. Everyone always ends up disappointed in me, Pasha.” He let his forehead fall against his folded forearms and sighed, mumbling into the table. “She’ll never want to look at me again.”

Portia sighed, a long-suffering sound, and finally drained her drink. “This is absurd, Ilya. Couples fight, you know.”

Julian tilted his face up and, as drink number four finally hit him in full force, took a few seconds longer than usual to focus his gaze. “She doesn’t love me, she loves Asra.”

At this Portia slapped her palms on the table. “Are you listening to yourself? Is she back in Vesuvia with Asra right now?” She rubbed at her temples in a gesture she’d obviously picked up from long days around Nadia. “People are complicated, Ilyushka. All people. Not just you.”

The look Julian gave her, all hangdog and puppy-eyed and miserable, might have softened anyone who wasn’t familiar with his tendency toward self-inflicted melancholy and angst. As it was Portia on the receiving end, however, she simply leaned over to grab his ear and give it a twist to pull him up to a fully seated position. “Ow ow owwwww!” Julian yelped and swatted wildly at Portia, but she had a firm grip and wasn’t about to let go for the sake of a few weak slaps from her dizzy drunk of a brother.

She stood and hoisted him up from the chair. “Pay for the drinks, finish that water, and go apologize,” she shot at him. “I thought I’d have to threaten Vissenta to not break your heart, but you seem to be doing that perfectly well without her help.”

Meekly, Julian obeyed, choking down the water and leaving twice the amount of coin needed to pay their tab. He staggered forward unsteadily, but a bit of newfound resolve soon guided him back on track, and he managed to make it out of the bar with minimal stumbling. Portia weaved through the tables behind him and flashed the barmaid a cheery grin while waving goodbye.

Out on the street, the first parade of the first night of the Carnaval was in full swing. They’d not gone far from the open-air cafe where they’d left Vissenta, but pushing through the throng proved even harder than they’d expected. When they finally made it back to the striped awning of the cafe, they made a beeline for the table they’d been at.

There was already another group sitting there, laughing tipsily over coffee and pastry. Julian looked as if he might launch into some new and even more embarrassing sort of miserable monologue, so Portia grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him toward the doors leading to the cafe’s kitchen. “Come on. We can just ask the waiter. He’ll know which way she went.”

Julian straightened his spine. “Right. The waiter.” He sighted the man almost instantly, his height giving him some advantage in the crush of waiters and busboys and cooks that flowed in and out of the swinging doors. “Excuse me! Sir!”

The man caught Julian’s eye and his mouth dropped open. Without a word, he dropped the tray of coffees in his hand with a clatter and fled into the kitchen.

Something about the promise of a chase seemed to sober Julian up, and he pointed to the side of the building. “Around the back, Pasha!”

“Already ahead of you, Ilya!” Portia ducked and wove through the mess of indignant diners and apologetic staff who’d been caught in the splatter of dropped coffees and shattered mugs. She hip-checked more than one person on her way to the back of the building, while Julian sprinted through the doors inside.

The waiter was nowhere in sight. “Pardon me… excuse me… _excusez-moi…”_ He managed to summon up what little of Parlet he knew as he shouldered his way past sweaty-faced cooks that stared at him, mouths agape, as they forgot entirely about the neat squares of dough they’d dropped into the hissing vats of oil. He ducked into the storage room and stumbled over a sack of flour that lay in the doorway. “ _Merde,_ ” he hissed, the most important word in Parlet he knew, and staggered back to his feet, brushing himself off. The waiter had clearly expected them to come this way. Julian could only hope that Portia caught him running out the back door.

Sure enough, Portia had the man in a headlock on the cobblestones in the back alley. The waiter was tugging at Portia’s forearm to no avail, spluttering in protest. “I did nothing! Nothing wrong!”

Julian cleared his throat, and Portia twisted her head around at the sound. “Ilya! Come on, help me out, I’m not getting anything from this guy.” She gave the man another squeeze, pressing her arm into his windpipe until he was gasping, and eased up only just enough to let him breathe.

It was Julian’s turn to roll his eyes (or visible eye, as it were) at Portia. “He can tell us more, Pasha, if he can breathe.” He knelt down in front of the man as Portia eased her grip slightly. “Now, my _good_ sir, I take it you remember us from earlier this evening?”

Blood was running from the waiter’s nose now in a slow trickle, though from Julian’s quick once-over, it appeared to simply be from the scuffle and not a much more serious head injury. The man managed a weak smile. “Excellent tippers, yes.”

Julian raised an eyebrow. “Why would you run away from excellent tippers?”

Portia leaned down. “Got something to hide?”

“Pasha,” Julian said through gritted teeth. “You aren’t helping.”

With a huff, Portia let go of the waiter. “There. But if you try running again, I’m gonna knock your ass out on this pavement so fast—“

“ _Pasha!_ ”

The waiter fell to the pavement without any help from Portia, gasping, and reached up to rub at his neck. “So you overpaid me, then.”

Julian leveled his stare at the man. “We had a third person with us. A woman, absolutely gorgeous, eyes like emeralds, _far_ too lovely to be seen with someone like me—“

“ _Ilya_.”

Julian gave Portia a wry smile. “Anyway. She stayed behind, might have ordered some more of that _wonderful_ coffee you serve here. Any idea where she went afterward?”

The waiter shook his head. “I did nothing wrong. Nothing!”

Julian blinked slowly, and his wry smile took on a nastier, flintier edge. “Pasha, _now_ would be the appropriate time to cut off this man’s air supply.”

“No!” The man waved his hands and shook his head. “All I did was take her the coffee that Rémy gave to me. Said he was under direct order from les Belles.”

Before the man could move, Julian’s hand was at his throat, and his grin had turned to a snarl. Portia backed away, slowly, unused to seeing her brother like this, unused to seeing whatever streak of darkness that had apparently been sunk into him by circumstance, and all she could do was watch as Julian held onto the man by the neck and leaned his face in until he was a hair’s breadth away. “If she’s dead…”

The waiter shook his head as much as Julian’s fingers would allow. “Not dead yet. But might as well be, if les Belles have her, and you know it.”

“Ilya,” Portia whispered. “Ilya, who are les Belles?”

Abruptly, Julian let go and stood up. He flicked at an imaginary speck of dust on his coat, straightened the cuffs, and ran a gloved hand through his hair. “Come on, Pasha.” He turned on his heel to go. “We’re going to need Mazelinka’s help for this.”

* * *

“Vivien.”

Vissenta blinked. The voice sounded like it was coming from above, like she was back in the cavern, like she was in her dream again, but it wasn’t a dream. This voice sounded real, and urgent, and worried, and… familiar? She struggled to open her eyes, and the lids still felt so heavy, as if she was going to have to use all of her strength to open them. So use her strength she did.

She was staring up into a pair of hazel eyes, framed by a riot of short dark curls, with the warm glow of lamplight just beyond. She blinked, slowly, and tried to work her lips into the shape of a word. All that came out was a croaking hiss.

The owner of the dark hair and green-brown-gold eyes, a woman, she could see now, muttered something in a language that Vissenta didn’t think she knew, but was fairly certain from the tone that it was a swear word. “Rémy! How much did you give her?”

“The whole vial, milady.” Vissenta knew that voice. It was the teenage pickpocket who’d run away from her earlier in the night and whose voice she’d heard before she fell unconscious. She tried her hardest to clench her fist, and when that didn’t work, she started to ponder what could have been in a vial to put her in this state.

The hazel-eyed woman cursed again. “Rémy, that was five times the dose. You’re lucky she’s still alive.”

“I didn’t know!”

The woman imperiously snapped her fingers. “Out. Now.”

There was the sound of shuffling feet and a door opening and closing softly shut. The woman peered back into Vissenta’s eyes. “Vivien. Vivien, can you understand me? Blink three times if you can understand me.”

Obediently, Vissenta blinked three slow times in succession, in spite of the name not being her own. The woman’s shoulders relaxed. Then she reached to yank Vissenta’s collar down.

All Vissenta could manage was a gurgle of protest as the woman inspected her upper arm. The woman’s eyes were staring into hers again, narrowed and suspicious, and she let out a stream of words in the flowing, lilting language Vissenta had heard spoken around her all night. When Vissenta didn’t respond, the woman pressed the tip of a knife to her chin. “Where did you get my sister’s pendant,” she hissed, reverting back to Common.

“Marcelie!” A new, softer voice joined, and Vissenta prayed that this one belonged to someone who could convince the woman apparently named Marcelie to not kill her before she had a chance to explain.

Marcelie pulled her blade away from Vissenta’s neck. “This witch stole Vivien’s face, Celeste.”

Vissenta still couldn’t turn her head, but she didn’t have to, as her mysterious new savior appeared beside Marcelie. She was much paler, with delicate, fine-boned features, and honey-gold hair braided in a crown around her head. She looked down at Vissenta with pitying eyes, light blue and fathomless, and laid a cool hand on her forehead. “This face is scarcely three years old,” she said.

Vissenta desperately wished she could nod her assent. She tried, but all she could manage was a slow shift, a twitch of her eyelids, and she tried to work her mouth into some semblance of speech again. This time, something intelligible managed to pass her lips. “Died. Brought back.”

Celeste smiled gently. “Yes, I can see that.” She pressed her fingertips to Vissenta’s temples, with both hands now, and closed her eyes. “Powerful magic here. I can untangle a few of the threads, but not all of them.”

Marcelie frowned down at Vissenta. “Do it, if you absolutely must. I have to know.”

Like the same warm current Vissenta felt whenever she gripped the pendant, energy flowed from Celeste’s fingers, tendrils of something so soothing and gentle that seemed to caress her mind, and she gasped in surprise. There was a flash of light in front of her eyes, and she sat up, retching.

Marcelie.

_Marcelie._

Vissenta gulped in great, choking breaths, as Celeste collapsed in a chair next to the narrow bed, her face shining with sweat, bruise-violet circles forming under her eyes. Marcelie was at Celeste’s side in an instant, stroking her hair and murmuring in that language again, and Vissenta found she could understand it.

 _«Celeste, sweetheart, are you all right?»_ Marcelie’s face - a face Vissenta knew, a face she remembered and loved, with the same strong brows and sharply angled jaw of her own - creased with worry. She cut a glance over her shoulder at Vissenta. _«This bitch better be worth it.»_

 _«That’s a nasty thing to call your baby sister,»_ Vissenta retorted without a second thought.

In a flash Marcelie stood and a broad grin spread across her face. _«Say that again.»_

Vissenta brought her fingers up to her lips, then looked back up at Marcelie in wide-eyed wonder. She raised one eyebrow and grinned back, the flood of memories stirring up a feeling as giddy as when she’d set foot in Parletris earlier that night. _«I said, call me a bitch again and we’ll have to cross swords.»_

With a shout, Marcelie bowled Vissenta back over, wrapping her arms around her in a tight embrace. _«Vivien!»_

“Vissenta.” Finally coming down from the high of her newly-recovered memory, Vissenta gave her sister an extra squeeze and switched back to Common. “It’s Vissenta now. Or it has been. For a long time.”

Marcelie sat back and looked at Vissenta with shining eyes. “I don’t care what you call yourself,” she replied, in softly-accented Common. “You survived.” With a start, she gestured at Vissenta’s bared right arm. “It’s back,” she breathed out softly.

Vissenta looked down to see four lines on her upper arm, deeply red-brown and defined, a birthmark she hadn’t seen ever since she was reborn in this new body. “I suppose it is.”

Celeste coughed weakly from her chair, and Marcelie was back at her side in an instant. The blonde woman waved the dark-haired one away. “I’m fine, _cherie_. It was only a few years of memory.” She gave Vissenta a wavering smile. “ _L’oracle Sauvage._ ” She inclined her head slightly. “It is an honor to meet you at last.”

This brought Vissenta to a halt, and she thought she may have to lay back down. “I… pardon?”

Marcelie pressed a light kiss to Celeste’s forehead and stood up, her back ramrod straight, and planted her hands on her hips. “Surely you remember that, Viv- Vissenta.” She stumbled over the new name, shaking her head, but pressed on. “You’re lucky I found you before the twins did.”

At the mention of the twins, Vissenta felt the pit of her stomach turn to cold stone. “They still want me dead,” she whispered, more memories flowing back into her mind, and none quite so giddy as they were before. Anaïs and Isabeau. Their cold, glowing eyes on the night she fled. The blood beneath their fingernails, the lifeless body of their father beneath them. “They’re going to kill me.”

This just made Marcelie shake her head. “Not quite. But I wouldn’t call their plans much better than death.” She stared at Vissenta, eyes gone golden in the flickering firelight. “We have some plans to make.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *clenches fist* we love sibling dynamics in this house


	6. Easy Come And Easy Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plan interrupted and a dangerous gambit.

“Ninety-eight… ninety-nine… one hundred.” The coins clinked satisfyingly through Mazelinka’s fingers as she counted them, letting them plunk one by one into a small brass-bound wooden box. Her liqueurs and tinctures sold well tonight, and she was looking forward to taking a well-earned break to enjoy the rest of the Carnaval week in Parletris. It reminded her of a simpler time, when she took Lilinka on pleasure jaunts out beyond the tireless, thankless work of tending the Nevivon baths. She’d learned quite a few tricks in Parletris, as well; some of her best recipes came from this quarter, recipes she’d made Lilinka copy down in her neat, even script.

She smiled wistfully. Lilinka would have loved to see Ilya and Pasha all grown, would have adored Vissenta for the way she kept Ilya on his toes. Coming back here without Lilinka felt bittersweet at best. She patted the wall of the cabin and smiled. “Told you’d I’d name a ship for you,” she said aloud.

“Eh? What was that, captain?” Ketos looked up from across the table, where he’d been scratching away at the ledger to account for his purchases that evening.

“Wasn’t talking to you,” Mazelinka retorted. She stood and pressed her knuckles into her lower back, doing the best she could to work out the stiffness in her joints. “Ah, these old bones aren’t getting any younger, eh, Ketos?”

“Nay, captain.” Ketos laid the quill down carefully and waved another sheet of parchment over the wet ink on the ledger to help it dry. “Time’s coming for you to take on a first mate, and you know it.”

Mazelinka waved a hand. “First mate shmirst mate. I’ve got plenty of life left in me yet.”

With a smile, Ketos stood to go. “Not wishing you dead, captain. Just the words of an old friend who’s got old bones himself.”

“Pah.” Mazelinka cracked her knuckles and rolled her neck. “What are you still doing here? Go enjoy the festivities.”

“Could say the same for you.” Ketos inclined his head and took his leave, shutting the door to the captain’s quarters behind him.

Mazelinka shook her head. She couldn’t disagree with Ketos, not really. She wasn’t ready to give up the seafaring life, but someone had to care for the _Lilinka_ when she got too old to take on all her usual responsibilities. Someone who knew what it meant to love the sea, to love a ship, to love a life of adventure. She’d thought that maybe Ilya would take up the mantle, but seeing him with Vissenta made her long for him to have the life she never could quite lead. Whatever those two might get up to, it needed to be free from the burden of her old ship and her old crew, something with a fresh start. Pasha might have joined her crew for good, once, but her life and work at the palace was too good for Mazelinka to want to take it all away. Those two Devoraks were made for adventure, but they’d found adventures of their own, and with every passing day Mazelinka felt the years creaking in her joints, felt the loneliness she’d never expected to grow old enough to see.

She sighed and patted the curved wood of the hull once more. “Oh, Lilinka, what to do?” She cocked her head, then nodded. “Of course. A night out at the Carnaval is just the ticket.”

She busied herself with putting away the coin, tidying up the ledger and the log, and pouring a good stiff drink to give her a head start on the festivities. She reached up to touch the costume pearls around her neck as she sipped the spiced rum. In her day, she’d plundered her fair share of gold and gemstones, collecting jewelry like a magpie, draping herself with shining twenty-four-karat chains and diamond settings and all manner of ostentatious adornment. It was impressive, and it was a warning: the Dread Pirate Mazelinka took no prisoners, and left no heirloom behind. But of all the trophies she’d collected over the years, none were as valuable as these pearls that were just a touch too perfect, just a little too shiny, just a little too light. They’d been thrown at Lilinka during a Carnaval much like this one, on an October night full of promise and perfume, and Lilinka bestowed them upon Mazelinka with a kiss.

She hadn’t taken them off once since.

Knocking back the rest of the rum, Mazelinka shook her head. _Too old for sentiment,_ she told herself, and gathered up her coin purse to enjoy the rest of her night.

The cabin door slammed open, with Julian and Portia rushing in, both of them red-faced and panting for breath. “Mazelinka!” Julian leaned forward to plant his hands on the massive table at the center of the cabin, still sucking in lungfuls of air. “Mazelinka, something’s happened to Vissenta.”

* * *

“Is this really a good time to be eating?” Vissenta stared at the platter of food before her, then back up at the boy who’d brought it to her. Rémy. He flashed her a crooked smile, putting on the charming face he’d first tried on her when he made the attempt for her purse. She narrowed her eyes. “Have you poisoned this too?”

The tow-headed teenager threw up his hands, stammering. “Mi- milady, it wasn’t _poison_.” He flashed her a sheepish grin. “Besides, it was Mateo who put it in your coffee.”

From the corner of the room where she was busy honing the edge of a wicked-looking dagger, Marcelie looked up and groaned. “You gave it to Mateo? Rémy, the minute someone asks him about Viv- Vissenta, he’ll fold like a bad hand of belote!”

“I had to act fast!” Rémy gave the serving platter a pointed stare. “If you won’t eat that, I won’t mind taking it off your hands, milady.”

“Oh no you don’t.” Marcelie gestured at Vissenta with the dagger. “You’ll need more on your belly than beignets for what’s ahead of us.” Her expression softened slightly. “ _Dieux_ , it’s like we’re children again.”

Vissenta managed a small smile. “What, did I stuff myself silly on fried dough when we were children?”

With an emphatic nod, Marcelie went back to running her dagger along the whetstone balanced on her thigh. “If you’d been able to choose where to eat every time we came to the city, it would have been the closest beignet stand and we wouldn’t leave until you were sick.”

Rémy continued to stare at the platter on the table. He finally looked over at Celeste, imploring. “ _Maman_ ,” he whined.

Celeste, who had recovered well enough to sit and work at a pile of mending, shook her head. “That is for Mmeselle Vissenta,” she said absently, her fingers deftly working a needle back and forth in a shirt that looked very much like the one Marcelie was currently wearing.

VIssenta’s eyes went round as the saucer beneath her coffee cup. “ _Maman_?” She looked from Celeste to Rémy, only just now seeing the resemblance: both fine-boned, golden-haired, light-eyed, with the same set of the mouth that made them look like a pair of very serious porcelain dolls. “Your son is a kidnapping pickpocket?”

“Mm, well, technically, Marcelie kidnapped you.” Celeste’s face was serene, but there was a light behind her eyes now, as if she possessed an amusing secret, the holder of a private joke that one could only dream of hearing. She mustered a serious look towards her son. “ _Chou_ , were you picking her pocket? Haven’t we talked about this?”

Blushing, Rémy shrugged and stared down at his shuffling feet. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Oh, leave the boy alone,” Marcelie interrupted. “He’s the best I’ve got on the ground in the quarter.” She winked at him. “And I have a special job for you now.”

This made Rémy perk up. His eyes, turned on Marcelie, were shining and worshipful. “A special job?”

Vissenta had seen that eager look on Cita and Elka’s faces whenever Julian tasked them with something on the ship, or really whenever Julian said anything in their general direction. She frowned and looked back down at the array of dishes, so caught up in thinking on Julian that she nearly missed Marcelie’s directive to Rémy.

“…and make sure the word gets out that l’Oracle has returned.”

Vissenta started, nearly knocking over a bowl of something hot and fragrant and topped with grilled prawns. “The what has what?”

Marcelie gave her a withering stare. “The long-lost Sauvage daughter has come back home.” She patted Rémy’s arm. “Go tell your  _pépère_ that I said you can have whatever you want from the kitchen, and then run out to finish the job that Mateo’s likely started.”

“Yes, milady!” Rémy was out the door like a shot, bounding down the stairs in twos and threes.

Clucking her tongue disapprovingly, Celeste held up the shirt for inspection. “You indulge him too much.”

Before Marcelie could retort, Vissenta held up a hand. “Could someone please tell me about this oracle business first?” She blinked, then rubbed her forehead instinctively, expecting a headache to creep in like pins and needles. No ache came, and she suddenly felt rather foolish. “And why this entire city has to know?” She then gestured around the room. "And where, exactly, are we?"

Celeste smiled. "Lafitte's. My family's tavern."

Vissenta nodded, then turned to Marcelie expectantly.

Marcelie pointed at the bowl Vissenta had almost knocked over. “Eat first, and then I’ll tell you.”

Gingerly, Vissenta picked up the steaming bowl of stew, holding the hot porcelain with only her fingertips as she dipped a spoon into it. It didn’t look like much; she’d seen the same kind of hearty fare in the south end of Vesuvia, usually comprised of whatever poor creature was slow enough to get caught and popped in the pot that day. Such things weren’t necessarily _bad_ , but she preferred to not know exactly what was in them. She blew on the first spoonful, then popped it in her mouth.

This was no south end stew. This was a gorgeously rich and thick thing, with shredded meat so tender it melted on the tongue, prawns cooked just enough so as to still burst with briny juiciness, a melange of vegetables and grains, layered spices too complex to pick out individually, and Vissenta swore that it unlocked another distant memory, because the moment she swallowed the spoonful in closed-eye bliss, she breathed out a word: “Filé.”

Marcelie beamed across the room at Celeste. “She wouldn’t have remembered that word if it wasn’t yours, Celeste.”

The other woman waved her hand. “Nonsense. Plenty of cooks in this city make a good filé.”

“But they don’t make yours,” Marcelie said, smiling with unreserved, unabashed fondness.

Celeste shook her head and smiled. “Go on, Marcelie. You made a promise.”

Vissenta scraped at the bottom of the bowl. “Yes, Marcelie, you promised.” She held up the empty dish, waggling it back and forth. “See? I ate something that wasn’t a beignet.”

Marcelie stood to stand by the fireplace. She stared down at the dagger in her hands, uncharacteristically pensive, turning the blade over so that it glinted in the light from the roaring flames. “Maybe you should tell me what you want to hear first. What your biggest question is.”

“You mean other than the fact that you had your girlfriend’s son drug me and kidnap me so you could threaten my life, restore my memories, and then tell everyone that I’m here?” Vissenta cut a look at Celeste, who’d gone pink at the reference to her relationship with Marcelie, and raised an eyebrow. “I think the main question here is why.”

“To protect you, because you’re too foolish to protect yourself!” Marcelie spat the words out in a rush and slammed the dagger down on the mantel. Her face had gone stormy, hard, a mask of fury that Vissenta quailed beneath. When she saw how she’d made her little sister shrink back, Marcelie softened just a touch. “I begged you to run. And here you come, ten years gone, in a body you weren’t born into and with your memories locked away.” She huffed out a dry, sardonic bark of laughter. “Maybe I should be the one asking questions of you.”

Vissenta crossed her arms and shot Marcelie a stubborn glare. “Don’t change the subject.”

This earned a cocked eyebrow from Marcelie, who picked up the stool she’d been sitting on before and moved to rest closer to the bed where Vissenta sat. “I want the city to know you’re back so the twins don’t kill you.”

At this, all the color drained from Vissenta’s face. “How… how can you be so sure?”

“That they won’t kill you? Simple.” Marcelie plucked a crusty slice of bread from the serving platter and piled it high with a spread made from finely-chopped olives and pickled vegetables. “You were always the darling of Parletris.”

Vissenta couldn’t help but snort at this. “Are you looking at me right now? I haven’t been the darling of anything for as long as I can remember.”

“Ah, as you say.” Marcelie talked rather indecorously around the mouthful of bread and spread. She chewed some more and gulped it down, reaching for an as-yet-untouched wine bottle to busy herself with prying out the cork.

“Marcelie, darling, we have a corkscrew,” Celeste said, standing to rifle through a chest of drawers along the wall.

With a final stab of her blade, Marcelie broke the cork in half. “Don’t bother.” She poured three glasses of the dark red stuff and pushed one towards Vissenta. “Like you said, you don’t remember. But I do. And so does this city.” She took a sip from her own glass and pursed her lips. “Well, as much as this city remembers anything. But that’s where we come in.”

Vissenta took a sip of the wine. It burst across her tongue with flavors of dark chocolate, and deep red berries, and something sharp yet earthy that nearly made tears well up in her eyes. “Gods, this is good.” She stared into the glass. “They don’t make wine like this in Vesuvia.”

Marcelie grinned. “I should hope not, since it’s Sauvage estate wine.” She raised her glass. “Cheers, I suppose.”

Vissenta didn’t take the bait. “From what I remember of the twins, they didn’t care too much what the common people thought of them.”

The light in Marcelie’s eyes dimmed for a moment, and she shook her head, half in wonder, half in agreement. “The damnedest thing has happened in the past six months, though.” She swirled her wineglass. “Something changed. They… they stumble more. Living in that castle has always felt like a chess game, but they’ve lost their touch. Something happened to that terrible magic they did with...” She buried her face in her free hand.

“With Papa’s heart,” Vissenta finished. The mental image was almost too much to bear: her eldest sisters, heads bent over their lifeless father’s body, blood dripping from their mouths and fingers and running down the fronts of their gowns. Their eyes had glinted black and red when they turned to se her staring at them from the doorway. _The same eyes the Devil had turned on her, in the garden, in the desert, in the stifling red-hot metallic clang of his own realm…_

She tilted her head back to drain her wine in a series of long, deliberate gulps. She reached for the bottle. “I remember that. They… they wanted mine too, didn’t they?”

Marcelie nodded, then looked at Celeste with an expression of soft worry. “Are you still all right, love?”

“Oh, I’ve never been better.” Celeste had set aside her mending and was chewing thoughtfully on her own slab of bread, spread thick with creamy, cool butter. “There’s been a shift in the cards, you know.”

Vissenta sat up straighter. “You read the cards too?”

“Celeste is the best reader in this or any other city,” Marcelie said, before Celeste could get a word in edgewise. “Best reader, best potion-blender, best magician I’ve met, honestly.”

“Flatterer.” Celeste was still looking at Vissenta. “Yes, I read the cards. And while I know you Vesuvians have a… special relationship with the Major Arcana…” She lifted one shoulder in a graceful, dismissive gesture. “We have our way of doing things, here. We see things. The truth of things.” She reached into her mending basket and withdrew a velvet pouch, one like so many Vissenta had seen to carry tarot decks, and pulled out a deck. She passed the cards over to Vissenta. “Take a look.”

It was an old, well-worn deck, for certain. But where Vissenta had been so used to the lush images of Asra’s deck, with clearly-defined suits and faces, this deck looked almost like a deck of playing cards. The images were simple, almost repetitive, just line drawings shaded in red and blue, with only subtle shifts to clue the reader in to whether they were cups or swords or pentacles or wands. The Major Arcana were only slightly easier to discern, but as Vissenta ran her fingers over their faces, she felt the faint, muted tingle of familiar energy. The Magician was a welcome friend, even without his fox head, and she felt a sharp pang at the sight of the Hanged Man. Her eyes welled up with tears, suddenly. “I have to… I have to go, my… my friends….”

Marcelie shook her head. “You can’t. Let them think you’re gone, Viv. Vissenta.” She pulled a face. “Must I call you that?”

“I’ll certainly answer to it faster,” Vissenta grumbled. She rubbed the back of her hand over her cheeks. “Why should I forget them? They’re…” She choked on the words. _They’re important. I love them. I love Julian._

“They’d be in such grave danger, _cher_.” Celeste rested her small, fine fingers over Vissenta’s. “The twins will let you live, but if they know you care about someone else…”

Marcelie nodded. “She’s right. We have to play a dangerous game now, Vi… Vissenta.”

Celeste gestured at the cards in Vissenta’s hands. “Keep going. There is more hidden in there for you to find.”

Vissenta sniffled, and nodded. _La Belle Sauvage does not show weakness,_ she thought suddenly. It was something her father and Marcelie had repeated to her, over and over, whenever she woke up in the middle of the night crying for her mother. _She would have wanted you to be strong._ With renewed determination, she continued to pass the cards one by one through her hands. The Empress. The Star. The Hermit. All these figures she knew, all with the breath of something comforting.

Then she passed her fingers over the Devil.

There was nothing. Absolutely nothing. No feeling, no response. She looked up at Celeste. “Is this what’s changed?”

Celeste nodded. “He is a symbol. An idea. Nothing more.” Her bright blue eyes peered keenly into Vissenta’s. “Someone has bound him. And I think I might know who.”


	7. The Awful Cost Of All We Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mazelinka is mom of two dumbass kids, and Vissenta faces her fate.

Julian, on his best days, was a fidgeter. He could not stay still to save his life. Staying in one place was against his very nature, really, and he would often rather stand up and pace around than try to sit down. If he had a drink to relax him, he might be able to remain stationary, but it was still a solid _maybe_. So when Mazelinka ordered him to sit down and explain to her exactly how it came to be that he and Portia - just him, really, because Portia had little to do with it, as he kept trying to _tell_ Mazelinka - lost Vissenta, he desperately wished he had a drink to help him with the task.

He shifted in the chair once more, fairly certain that the longer he sat there, the greater danger Vissenta might be in, eyeing Mazelinka’s rum bottle all the while. “We, ah… that is, I… there was a disagreement?”

Mazelinka, who up to this point had been pacing back and forth on the opposite side of the table, paused to lean forward. With the Devoraks both sitting down across from her, she was able to look down at them like they were children again, and Julian found that he was decidedly not a fan of the perspective. She poured herself another drink and squinted into Julian’s good eye. “A disagreement so bad you left her alone in a city she’s never visited in her life?”

Julian gulped, his mind racing to come up with a good answer. No matter how he phrased it, he came up sounding like the world’s biggest ass, and while he generally agreed with this assessment, admitting as much to Mazelinka felt like a deeply personal failing. “It was - that is - what I mean to say is that we -“

“I told him he was being an idiot, Mazelinka.” Portia shot Julian a glare and gave him a none-too-gentle kick with the side of her foot. Instinctively, Julian kicked back, smacking against her ankle with the buckle of his boot, and she hissed at the smarting pain that shot up her calf. She moved to throw an elbow, but Mazelinka’s voice brought her back to the problem at hand.

“It’s your fault too, Pasha.” Mazelinka crossed her arms and turned her gaze onto Portia, who turned bright red and shrank down. “How about you start, from the beginning.”

Portia chewed on her bottom lip and looked from Mazelinka to Julian, who was looking at her with renewed interest and suspicion. She unsuccessfully tried to blow a strand of hair out of her face, then pushed it back. “So, um…” She twisted her fingers together. “Vissenta was kissing Asra before we left Vesuvia and I promised her I wouldn’t tell you I’m sorry!” The words all flew out in a jumbled rush, and Portia looked as if she might cry. She gave Mazelinka a watery, sniffling pout. The older woman nodded, as if she’d known the whole of the truth this entire time. Knowing Mazelinka, it was highly likely that she did.

Julian froze, eye wide. “So it _was_ like that, eh?” He sat back in the chair, his fidgeting all but forgotten, his sense of urgency screeching to a halt at the mental image of Vissenta and Asra. “I knew it,” he muttered to himself. The corners of his mouth turned down and his expression went dark and brooding once more.

Mazelinka rolled her eyes. “You think I didn’t kiss other women when I was with Lilinka?”

Julian blinked and his mouth fell open slightly. “You… _what_?”

Mazelinka poured herself another drink, and after a moment’s thought, poured two more glasses of rum. She slid them across the table, then sat back down in the captain’s chair. “We’ve wasted too much time. Tell me the rest.” She tapped her fingers on the table and gave the siblings a pointed glare. “Quickly, if you please.”

Portia lifted her chin and nodded. “They started to fight over this jewelry that Asra gave her with some crest on it - Savage, was it Savage, Ilya? -but Ilya walked away, and when we went back for him to apologize, she was gone.” She grabbed the rum and knocked it back, pulling a face and coughing a bit. She wiped her eyes and continued. “I tackled our waiter and he said something about Les Belles.” The last phrase fell strangely from her tongue as she tried to mimic the waiter’s accent on the unfamiliar words. “Who are Les Belles, Mazelinka?”

With a brisk nod, Mazelinka also drained her glass, though with far more businesslike panache than Portia. “To the point. Thank you, Pasha.” She stared at Julian. “Now, you will explain more to me later, but first, we have a magician to summon.”

Julian stared into his glass. “I’m going to need more than this to drink,” he muttered, and raised it to his lips.

“Wait!” Portia nearly knocked Julian over as she snatched the glass from him, at least half of the liquor sloshing to the floor in her haste. “I know how we can call him!”

* * *

Celeste was interrupted by the door slamming open and Rémy bursting in, panting for breath. “Milady!” He was red-faced and looked scared. Terrified, actually. Vissenta was taken aback at the naked fear on the boy’s face, and seeing it sent fear lancing through her heart, and she instinctively reached for Celeste’s hand and held tight.

Without a word, Marcelie stood to put her arm around Rémy’s shoulders. She cocked her head toward the open door, and it was then that Vissenta noticed the silence. Before, she could hear the sounds of taverns the world over: clinking metal against plates, tankards of ale clanging together in raucous toast, mingling voices, stumbling footfalls up the stairs to the rooms. Now, there was nothing. The tavern had gone still, so still that the loudest sound was Rémy’s ragged breathing. She clutched Celeste’s fingers even tighter. “What’s happened?” In the quiet, her whisper might as well have been a shout.

“They’re here,” Celeste replied. She gently extricated her hand from Vissenta’s grip and stood, beckoning to her son, taking him into his arms and stroking his hair, and the boy looked so much younger than he’d first appeared to Vissenta. He was fighting back tears now, she could see. Celeste stared at Marcelie. “Get them out of here,” she murmured, her voice gone suddenly chilly and distant.

“I didn’t—“

Celeste raised a hand, interrupting Marcelie. “Get them out of my father’s tavern.”

Marcelie opened her mouth, then seemed to think better of it, and nodded. She looked down at Vissenta, who still sat, frozen, unable or unwilling to leave the bed. “Now or never.”

 _I’d prefer never_ , Vissenta thought, but she unfolded her legs and came to a wobbly stand beside the bed. She straightened as much as she could manage, throwing her shoulders back in what she hoped was a dignified pose, hoping that perhaps if she put on the pretense of confidence she mightactually begin to feel it in her sinking stomach.

Whatever she looked like, she must have looked her part, because Marcelie flashed her a small smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “That’s it. They never scared you before, and they shouldn’t scare you now.” She took Vissenta’s hand. “Courage.”

When Marcelie tried to reach for Celeste and Rémy, Celeste stepped back and shook her head. Marcelie’s face fell, and she set her jaw and turned to leave the room. Vissenta looked over her shoulder for one last glance, a look that felt final, and tried to find the right words, but they still failed her. _So much for confidence_. She simply smiled at Celeste instead, something small and wavering and just as afraid as she felt. Celeste’s expression softened, and she mouthed the same word that Marcelie had uttered. _Courage_.

The walk down the hall to the stairs to the tavern’s common room felt like an eternity. Briefly, Vissenta wondered if this was how Julian felt when he ascended the gallows. _No_ , she thought bitterly. _He at least had some hope of coming back._

And he’d been able to see her, even if his harebrained plot hadn’t worked. They’d been able to look at each other, to have that moment together, even if the constant memory of it flashed behind her mind’s eye on her lowest nights when he left her alone in her bed, even if she’d always have the faint pang of the terror of losing him to accompany her in the times she was without him. Now she was truly alone, in a strange city that was more sickeningly familiar by the second, surrounded by people she could only hope didn’t actively wish her dead, and he’d left her here. He’d left her alone, rather than try to ask her for the truth. He’d left her alone like everyone else did.

And what if he’d brushed it off and stayed? He might have been able to help her when the potion took hold, might have gotten them both out of this godsdamned place, and they could be back on the _Lilinka_ right now without a care. They could be stripping one another of their clothes at this very moment, chasing away the doubts with a good, thorough fuck, like they always did.

Wouldn’t they?

So much raced through her mind, and it soon became too much to bear, and so she did what she’d always done. She pushed it all down, locked it away, _willed_ herself to banish the thoughts until she was no longer really in her own head. She was simply a body, just a collection of blood and muscle and skin and bones, and she was moving those parts forward because there was no other way to go. She’d always moved forward. This night, this tavern, this ill-fated family reunion… it was no different. Just another scene in which she was simply the set dressing.

Then they reached the top of the staircase.

As one, the tavern patrons turned their attention from the pair of richly-dressed women standing at the center of the room, twisting around in chairs and on benches, craning their heads to look at Marcelie and Vissenta. At least, that’s what Vissenta assumed, until she became uncomfortably aware that they weren’t looking at Marcelie at all. These countless pairs of eyes, some old, some young, some squinting, some wide, all inquisitive and full of wonder, were trained on _her_.

A stout older gentleman who stood before the twins - Monsieur Lafitte, Vissenta guessed - stared at her for a long time, his face still creased with anger and anxiety from whatever he’d been telling Anaïs and Isabeau. Gradually, the lines smoothed out, and to Vissenta’s shock and embarrassment, he inclined his head, then his torso, and swept his arm out in a grand bow. “Lady Vivien.”

Vissenta felt her face flush hot, but almost as soon as the warmth prickled her cheeks, she met the gaze of the twins, and she had the curious sensation of her face in flames while her blood ran with ice. She was frozen in place, at least until she felt Marcelie prodding her from behind with her knuckles. As gracefully as she could manage, her legs still wobbling from the aftereffects of the potion and the sheer rush of sickening, nervous energy that coursed through her under the twins’ piercing stares, she began to descend the stairs.

An old woman who’d been warming her hands by the fire stood. She didn’t move forward; rather, she started a slow ripple of movement in the common room, as the other patrons began to stand, one by one, then in twos and threes, until they were all on their feet, still watching Vissenta descend, looking at her with such solemn reverence that she thought she might vomit. She was very much not set dressing here. She was, like it or not, the star of the show.

With Marcelie’s gentle, subtle guidance from behind her, Vissenta crossed the room toward Monsieur Lafitte, Anaïs, and Isabeau. She hoped her face didn’t betray her terribly - Julian often teased her about how terrible she was at Prakran poker, as if he was better at maintaining his poker face - and did her best to school her expression into one of regal graciousness. _How does Nadia look, again?_ She desperately hoped that the tilt of her brows and lift of her chin read as inscrutability, something enigmatic, and not indigestion. « _Monsieur Lafitte, I thank you for your hospitality.»_ She was privately surprised at how well Parlet rolled from her tongue, how a language she knew she hadn’t spoken in a decade came to her easy as breathing once more.

The tavern keeper straightened, and the look of respect he gave Vissenta almost bowled her over. She was a magician from the streets of Vesuvia, a card-reading potion-making charm-casting shopkeep, but the way Lafitte looked at her sent the truth cracking through her like a bolt of lightning: _I am Lady Vivien Sauvage._

Lafitte nodded, just a small dip of his chin. “ _Merci_ , milady.” He stepped back, clearing the path to the twins, and Vissenta set her jaw to face her fate.

Anaïs was the first to speak. “Baby sister,” she said, her lips curling up into a smile that looked all the more menacing for the cold, hard sheen of her glass-green eyes. “How we’ve missed you.”

She and Isabeau both were fairer of feature than Marcelie and Vissenta, their eyes a purer, lighter green and hair the color of hazelnuts, and their brows arched delicately, almost cruelly. They’d both had their hair coiffed into elaborate braided crowns that held back long, shining curls that brushed their shoulders, and their gowns glowed with the rich sheen of velveteen in the tavern’s roaring orange firelight.

Vissenta felt that icy fear creep into her belly once more, and she flicked her gaze from Anaïs to Isabeau. Where the former was cold, cruel, distant grace, the latter bore the same curling grin that bared a perfect, pearlescent row of small, sharp teeth. Vissenta remembered, very suddenly, how those teeth had looked stained deep burgundy with blood, how Isabeau always had a feral edge that was only magnified when she stood next to her calm, collected twin. She repressed a shudder, a feeling she now knew was her usual reaction to her eldest sisters, and reached up to touch the pendant at her throat. She saw Anaïs’ eyes flick down at the movement, saw her brow arch further, that haughty smile fading just a little, and she couldn’t help but feel a spark of triumph as she met Anaïs’ gaze. « _I have come home, sisters.»_


End file.
